Though the menace of littering has come down at the Mysuru City Railway station since the launch of the Swachch Bharat Abhiyan last year, the authorities are finding it difficult to deter passengers and others from using the toilets in the coaches when the train is stationed at the platform.
During most of the cases, the authorities at the Mysuru City Railway station have booked under the Indian Rules, 2012 pertaining to the use of the toilet, when the train is at the platform, said a railway official.
“We have toilets on the main platform. There are also deluxe pay and use toilets. Unfortunately, most passengers think that the toilets in the compartment are meant to be used even when the train is at the station. Unless this mindset changes, we really have a tough job on hand,” the official said.
Alongside booking cases and collecting penalty for the offence, railway authorities are carrying out an awareness campaign. “Whenever we find people using the toilet in a stationary train and book them for the offence, they create a huge brouhaha,” an official said.
Railway officials are also forced to be lenient as most offenders would not have the penalty amount of Rs. 500. “In most cases, Rs. 200 is collected as fine,” he said.
The authorities at Mysuru City railway station feel that they are better off as they have access to water and other resources to wash off the human waste deposited underneath the stationary train. “Most other railway stations don’t have access to water,” an official said.
Bio-toilets
As the discharge of human waste from the toilets of the coaches also leads to corrosion of railway tracks, which in turn could lead to mishaps, a High-Level Safety Review Committee of Indian Railways, headed by the former Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anil Kakodkar, had recommended bio-toilets for all passenger coaches, the official said.
Bio-toilets collect the human waste, but discharge them only after its treatment and conversion into water and gases, that too after chlorination. But, fixing bio-toilets in all the coaches is still a distant dream, the official said.
Rs. 8, 400 collected as penalty between January to July, 2015
‘About 80 p.c. cases booked at the station pertain to usage of toilet when train is stationed at platform’
