Study finds railways stations at Rajasthan's Jodhpur, Marwar the cleanest, Delhi ranks 39th

New Delhi: Rajasthan’s Jodhpur and Marwar railway stations have emerged the cleanest among the major stations in the country in the latest round of cleanliness assessment study. While Jodhpur secured first position in A1 category stations in 2018, Marwar took the pole position in A category, according to the study report released by Railway Minister Piyush Goyal Tuesday. Both the stations fall under North Western Railway zone. A1 and A category stations contribute 80 percent of the passenger revenue. The stations are categorised based on revenue generated and footfalls. [caption id=“attachment_4268281” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. News18[/caption] Releasing the report, Goyal suggested making the annual study a half-yearly exercise for bringing about greater competitiveness among the stations and ensuring a “test check” in maintaining cleanliness standards. None of the major stations in the metros found a place in the top 10 list save for Anand Vihar in New Delhi which came in at fifth position. New Delhi station was ranked 39th, a position it had held in 2017 too. In the A1 category, Jaipur has been ranked second and Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh third. Vishakapatnam had emerged at the top in 2017 ranking of A1 category stations. It has slid to 10th position 2018. Phulera in Rajasthan took the second place among A category stations, while Warangal in Telengana was ranked third. When asked about the worst-performing station in the cleanliness chart, Goyal did not name the station but said the North Central Railway is at the 16th place, indicating that it was the worst performing among all the zones in terms of cleanliness. The railways is divided into 16 zones. “Last year, it was in the 15th place. We will take it up, (sic)” the minister said, highlighting the unique challenges confronting the zone. “The zone is saturated, has over utilised infrastructure and passing through difficult times,” he said. The North Central zone is headquartered in Allahabad and the routes passing through it have over 110 percent capacity utilisation. The North Western Railway topped in cleanliness zone-wise, followed by South Central Railway while East Coast Railway was ranked third. According to the survey report, compared to 2017, there is nine percent improvement in top 100 stations, 14 percent in the next 100. The cleanliness ranking, conducted by the Quality Council of India (QCI), was started in 2016. Since then, according to the study, there has been a significant improvement in cleanliness aspect. In 2017-18, average cleanliness of stations went up by 18 percent, 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 per of the citizens felt train toilets are “cleaner now”, he said. According to the study, 39 stations scored over 90 percent, a major jump, given that in 2017 none of them were in this bracket. Besides, 161 stations scored over 80 percent in the latest survey. The parameters adopted for conducting the survey across 407 A1 and A2 category stations 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. A team of 160 assessors were trained for the survey and the data was collected on real-time basis through an online platform. “Approximately 1,20,000 passenger feedback has been taken into account for the survey. Not only that, a central control room, operating round the clock, was set up to monitor daily progress,” railways said. Jodhpur and Jaipur stations in Rajasthan scored 977.71 and 972.30 points respectively out of 1000, followed by Tirupati which scored 964.96 points among A1 category stations. In A category stations Marwar and Phulera in Rajasthan scored 972.71 and 961.57 points respectively. Warangal, which is in third position, scored 956.23 points.