Jaipur has the cleanest railway station in the country, says survey

Perungalathur station, near Chennai, comes at the bottom of the list with a total score of 258.50.

File photo of Perungalathur station, which came at the bottom of the list of railway cleanliness survey. G. Krishnaswamy

Jaipur topped the list of cleanest railway stations in the country, as per a report ‘Swachh Rail, Swachh Bharat 2019’ released by Ministry of Railways.

The Indian Railways has a network of about 8,000 stations and for this report, however, 720 stations were taken into consideration. These stations were divided into three categories — non-suburban, suburban and halt stations, on the basis of footfalls and earnings.

Among the over 610 stations in the non-suburban category, Jaipur topped the list with a total score of 931.75, followed by Jodhpur, Durgapura, Jammu Tawi, Gandhinagar-Jp, Suratgarh, Vijayawada, Udaipur city, Ajmer and Haridwar. Of the top 10, seven stations fall under North Western Railway, two under Northern Railways (Jammu Tawi and Haridawar) and one under South Central railway (Vijayawada).

Perungalathur station, near Chennai, came at the bottom of the list with a total score of 258.50. Other stations at the bottom of the list were Delhi Sadar Bazar, Guduvancheri, Singaperumalkoil (both near Chennai) and Ottappalam (Kerala). Expect for Delhi Sadar Bazar, the other four come under Southern Railway.

Likewise, Andheri station topped the list ranking over 105 suburban station with a score of 728.52, followed by Virar, Naigaon, Kandivli and Santragachi. All stations in the top 5, expect Santragachi, which comes under south Eastern Railway, belong to Western Railway.

At the bottom of suburban station list are four stations from Southern Railways — Guindy, Velacheri, Pazhavanthangal (flag) and Chennai Road.

“In the Station Cleanliness Survey, it was found that among the NSG category stations, 2% stations have scored above 90% of the total score whereas 5% stations fall below 50%. While among the SG category stations, 4% of stations have scored within the range of 70%-80% whereas 14% of stations fall below 50%," the report stated.

Among the 16 geographic zones, North Western Railways (which has about 33 stations) continued to top the list with an average score of 848.76 while North Central Railways (which has 29 stations) remained on the bottom with an average score of 631.43.

As per the report, East Central Railway (52 stations) showed maximum improvement over previous year jumping 12 places to finish at number three this year.