The Nagapattinam-Velankanni rail line is slated for inspection by the Commissioner of Railway Safety shortly. “We have ‘dominantly complied with' the prescriptions of the CRS and we have approached him,” said P.V.Vaithyalingam, Divisional Railway Manager, here at the launch of the clean drive by the Southern Railway at the Nagapattinam railway station on Wednesday.
There were safety-related improvements and reinforcements prescribed along the line, the DRM said and hoped that the CRS inspection would give a go-ahead for passenger traffic. Goods trains are already being operated on the line.
A coach indication board for the Nagapattinam station by the end of this fiscal in March 2011 is on the anvil. Besides, a toilet facility at an estimated cost of Rs.10 lakh has been envisaged for the station, Mr.Vaithyalingam said. The team headed by the DRM and flanked by a medical team, was here to create a sense of ownership, among the public towards the railway.
Earlier speaking to The Hindu , the DRM said the objective was to impart a culture of hygiene. “Station belongs to you, like the drawing room of your house.” The inspection is a periodic routine to gauge the sanitation and hygiene conditions within the station, railways coaches and on the tracks along a particular line.
“Cups on tracks can cripple an entire rail system,” the DRM told the school children gathered there with placards against plastics. “Roughly, over two crore people use trains everyday, 750 crore people a year and an individual for an average four times a year,” the DRM said. Terming children as impressionable minds, Mr.Vaithyalingam called upon them to be the conduits of the drive to cleanliness.
M.Selvaraj, Additional Divisional Railway Manager, P.Velusamy, Chief Medical Superintendent, Railways, Trichy Division and R.B.Vishwanath Kumar, Divisional Medical Officer, Health and Family Welfare, were present.
