Mumbai nowhere in list of top ten cleanest stations

Mumbai: None of Mumbai’s railway stations featured in the list of top 10 cleanest stations in the country that was declared by the railway ministry on Thursday. There is, however, one silver lining for the city: Bandra station, which was ranked 60th last year, has leapfrogged to the 15th spot. Pune — ranked 9th — was the only station from the state in the top 10 list.

The dismal rankings have come out at a time when both the Central and Western Railway have been pushing for cleaner stations and better civic habits among commuters.

The rankings, which were tweeted by the ministry late on Wednesday afternoon, are part of a survey carried out by the Quality Council of India — a body formed under the ministry of industries.

An official from Central Railway (CR) under whom the historic railway station Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST), a UNESCO World Heritage Site, falls, said, “It is common knowledge that we have a lot of footfall, but this cannot be used as an excuse for lack of hygiene, especially at CST.” He added that CST station has been the bone of contention among many railway activists as well. “They have been continuously asking Railways to clean up its act, but this has not happened,” he said.

Western Railway tweeted n Continued from its official handle on Wednesday, “Third party audit reports on station cleanliness, Bandra station up from 60 to 15 among in top 10 improvemnts among A1 stations (sic).”

Central Railway also made its presence felt on social media site, tweeting, “Pune first in improvements in A1 station cleanliness and 9th in top 10 stations by third party survey released by (railway minister) Suresh Prabhu (sic).”

Another tweet by Railways said, “Central Railway 3rd amongst the zonal railways in Swachh Bharat, Swachh Rail for A1 and A category stations.”

A1 stations are those where the annual passenger earning is more than Rs 50 crore.