The Tiruchi railway junction was inspected by a senior official of an ISO certifying body to get a first hand account of the environment management measures in place at the station.
The detailed audit by the senior official comes at a time when the divisional railway authorities are working to achieve ISO 14001 certification in Environment Management System as per the direction of the National Green Tribunal.
A preliminary audit with respect to environment management was earlier done by a senior auditor after the divisional railway authorities had applied for ISO 14001 certification. The latest exercise was a comprehensive one carried out for two days - Friday and Saturday - by the auditor of the certifying agency accompanied by senior officials of different departments of the division.
Railway officials said the auditor inspected all the seven existing platforms at Tiruchi junction to ascertain its upkeep and the facilities put in place besides also ascertaining the level of overall cleanliness of the station.
Tiruchi junction being categorised as Non Suburban Grade-3 station in the Southern Railway zone has been witnessing steady rise in passenger footfalls over the years. The average footfalls daily at the junction exceed 25,000, say officials.
The auditor also inspected the parcel office, commercial, electrical and engineering offices besides ascertaining measures taken in respect of water and power conservation and cleanliness of tracks at the station.
A senior railway officer said the auditor had suggested scope for improvements and listed out the steps to be taken in the areas of water and energy conservation besides plugging the deficiencies and fixing internal targets for constant improvements.
Officials say space was not a constraint at Tiruchi junction for installation of more solar panels to harness solar energy to meet power requirements. LED lights were already in place as power conservation measure at the junction which would soon get its eighth platform which is under construction at the Kallukuzhi second entrance as part of the End-to-End Station Redevelopment Project being executed at a cost of ₹ 27 crore.
Tiruchi is one among the 37 stations across the Indian railway network directed to have an environment management system in place as per an order of the National Green Tribunal. An action plan has already been prepared by the divisional railway authorities in this regard and the first step of achieving ISO 14001 certification in environment management was under way, the official said.
A compliance report of the implementation of the measures as suggested by the ISO certifying agency auditor during his two-day recent inspection would be forwarded in order to obtain the certification soon. In addition to this, separate audits exclusively for water and power conservation would be done by another third party agency soon as per the direction of the National Green Tribunal.
