Railway Minister inspects Central station

Commuters were taken aback when Union Minister for Railways Dinesh Trivedi stepped into Thiruvananthapuram Central railway station here on Monday evening to ascertain the quality of the services at the station that is tipped to be converted to world-class standards.

Accompanied by Minister for Transport V.S. Sivakumar, Shashi Tharoor, MP, and top officials of Railways, Mr. Trivedi arrived at the station after a four-hour meeting convened by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy at Government Guest House.

Walking into the inquiry counter near the main entrance to the station building, Mr. Trivedi interacted with the staff manning the counter. Later, he visited the ticket counters and the book stall before moving to platform one to inspect various facilities.

With buses not plying owing to the dawn-to-dusk hartal called by the Left Democratic Front and the Bharatiya Janata Party in the State, there were hundreds of passengers at the station and the Kerala Express from New Delhi had just pulled in. Mr. Trivedi interacted with the passengers who were waiting for the intercity express later in the evening.

Mr. Trivedi visited the waiting room adjacent to the foot overbridge and later, the vegetarian refreshment stall on platform one, surprising the Railway officials and police personnel. On the hartal day, the stall was the only food joint open to commuters and the public at Thampanoor.

Mr. Trivedi spoke to some of the diners in the hall. He sat at one of the tables, along with Mr. Tharoor and Mr. Sivakumar, and ordered vada, tea, and coffee. Later, he stepped into the adjacent kitchen and carried out a thorough inspection of the food being served.

The next visit was to the Station Master's room. He went through the complaint book in detail. The next stopover was the air-conditioned waiting room for women on the southern side of platform one. Before winding up the visit, Mr. Trivedi presented a cash prize to Sunitha, the caretaker of the air-conditioned waiting room for women. “I was surprised to see that there were no complaints in the book. Instead, a former Railway official Lal had commended the service of Ms. Sunitha who is always there to help them with a smile. Hence, I decided to present her with a cash prize,” he said.

As the Minister had announced his intention to visit the station in the afternoon while briefing the press, the Railway staff had ensured that the premises were neat and clean. Mr. Trivedi promised that the development projects for the station would be expedited.

He sanctioned a computerised passenger reservation centre at the Secretariat at the request of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy. The centre will be on the lines of the satellite reservation centre functioning from the Life Insurance Corporation of India premises at Pattom.