When we talk about railway stations in the country, we always think about the cleanliness. With lakhs of people commuting from the various railway stations in the country, it becomes a difficult task to keep the station premises clean and tidy. 

To maintain the cleanliness on the railway station and also to know which stations need to work on it more, A Swachh Railway survey was conducted as a part of Swachh Survekshan 2017 among A-1 category. Chandigarh was announced as the cleanest station while other stations were also surveyed with different parameters.

The stations which contribute more than Rs 50 crore a year in passenger revenue are considered to be A-1 stations ,while A category stations contribute between Rs 6 crore and Rs 50 crore as annual passenger revenue. Last year, Chandigarh was ranked 6th in A-1 category and 32 overall in the survey conducted by IRCTC, which was based on passenger interviews conducted at stations on various parameters of cleanliness.

The second survey was conducted by the Quality Council of India (QCI) at 407 major railway stations -75 A-1 category and 332 A category stations of the Indian Railways. While the first position was secured by the Visakhapatnam railway station in the A1 category, Beas railway station in Punjab came on top in the A category.

The Lucknow railway station was ranked sixth across the country in the A1 category. As per a report published in Indian Express, Dinesh Kumar, Divisional Railway manager, Ambala division, northern railway said, “There are several other parameters and we will improve on it. But still we are ranked second in the northern railways category of A-1 stations.” 

The parameters adopted for conducting the survey include evaluation of cleanliness process in parking, main entry area, main platform and the waiting room, which had 33.33 percent marks. There was also a category of direct observation by QCI assessors which was again for 33.33 percent, and the last was passenger feedback which again contained 33.33 percent marks.

In the first parameter of the evaluation process, Chandigarh railway station secured 180.4 marks while in the direct observation where presence and cleanliness of toilets, presence of drinking water booth, waiting room, railway tracks were inspected, the station managed to score 209.3 marks. There was also a citizen feedback from 300 passengers and the station received 271.7 marks. Passengers were asked to rate the stations of 40 different parameters. The railways will now carry out a cleanliness survey of 200 trains.