A complaint frequently voiced by commuters who use the suburban train services is the state of bathrooms in stations. Most of the facilities in the stations are non-functional.
The worst part is that the Southern Railway, having constructed the toilets at a huge cost, keeps many of them locked.
The others are very badly maintained.
R. Muralikrishnan, who travels by train from Ambattur, said bathrooms in a number of railway stations like Perambur Loco, Pattravakkam and Korattur are almost always locked.
The Satta Panchayat Iyakkam, taking the Swachh Bharat campaign of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a model, has done a field study of the condition of public conveniences in railway stations in three routes.
The survey was conducted on the following stretches: Velachery to Beach (18 railway stations), Tambaram to Park (16 stations) and Avadi to Chennai Central (13 stations). It has found that only one bathroom is functional on each route.
The main complaint of participants of the survey was that several of the toilets in the railway stations on the three routes were either locked or not usable.
A. Jaiganesh, secretary of the Iyakkam, said that the members would meet senior officials of the Southern Railway and highlight the problems of lack of public conveniences in railway stations. “If our complaints are not heard, we will file a Public Interest Litigation in the Madras High Court soon,” he added.
