Kolkata Metro Railway, the oldest underground rail network in the country, which carries over half-a-million passengers daily, will construct toilets for passengers at stations, three decades after the service started.
Earlier this year, the National Human Rights Commission directed the Railway Board to provide relief to passengers as soon as possible.
It was acting on a complaint from Ranajit Sur, vice-president of the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights.
Officials of Kolkata Metro Railway have approached the Kolkata Municipal Corporation to build toilets at the Mahatma Gandhi Road, Esplanade and Maidan Metro stations.
However, they will not be built inside the tunnel, but at the entrance of the stations, officials said.
The city’s sewerage line is higher than the rail tunnel, so it was not possible to build toilets in the tunnel, officials said, explaining the absence of the facility. But Mr. Sur refused to buy the argument, pointing out that there are toilets for the staff inside the tunnel.
Metro officials told The Hindu that the decision was taken when passengers took up the issue with senior railway officials during Rail Hamsafar Saptaah (an interaction with passengers).
Mr. Sur said that with lakhs of people using the service every day, toilets were necessary at each of the 25 stations along the 25.13-km route, which ran to 3.4 km when the service was launched in 1984. In its reminder, the NHRC had said the absence of washrooms was likely to cause hardship to elderly and children.
