Bhubaneswar Among Top Ten Cleanest Railway Stations In India

Bhubaneswar Among Top Ten Cleanest Railway Stations In India

Here’s a piece of good news for train travellers! Bhubaneswar railway station has emerged as one of the cleanest railway stations in the country.

According to the latest cleanliness assessment study released by Railway Minister Piyush Goyal on Monday in Delhi, Bhubaneswar bagged 9th position in A1 category stations this year. In 2017, Bhubaneswar was at 13th spot. Significantly, Bhubaneswar railway station stands ahead of Visakhapatnam, which was declared last year’s cleanest railway station in India.

The top ten railway stations under ‘A1’ category are Jodhpur, Jaipur, Tirupati, Vijayawada, Anand Vihar Terminal, Secunderabad Jn, Bandra, Hyderabad, Bhubaneswar and Visakhapatnam.

As per the survey, Puri railway station secured 22nd rank as against 37th last year. Bhubaneswar and Puri, which come under the jurisdictions of the East Coast Railways (ECoR) were selected under ‘A1’ category.

The latest survey puts Cuttack railway station at 30th position under ‘A’ category. In 2017, Cuttack was ranked 100th.Among other railway stations in the state, Palasa (20), Brahmapur (35), JajpurKeonjhar Road (39), Rayagada (64), Khurdha (127), Bhadrak (160) and Sambalpur (239) were placed under ‘A’ category.

Zone-wise, the North Western Railway topped the list, followed by South Central Railway while East Coast Railway was ranked third.According to the survey report, compared to 2017, there is a nine percent improvement in the top 100 stations and 14 percent in the next 100.

The survey was conducted by the Quality Council of India (QCI) covering 407 major railway stations (75 A1 category and 332 A category stations). The first survey was conducted by the IRCTC in 2016, the second by QCI.

In 2017-18, average cleanliness of stations went up by 18 per cent, and 61 percent of all citizens covered in the latest round of the study said the cleanliness was ‘above average’, QCI chairman Adil Zainulbhai said. Significantly, 47 percent of the citizens felt train toilets are ‘cleaner now’, he said.

The parameters adopted for conducting the survey were ‘evaluation of process of cleanliness in parking, main entry area, main platform, waiting room, direct observation by QCI assessors of cleanliness and passenger feedback, with each of the parameters carrying 33.33 percent.