Jaipur adjudged India’s cleanest railway station

JAIPUR: Jaipur has been ranked top in the cleanliness survey of railway stations in the country, according to the ‘Swachh Rail, Swachh Bharat 2019’ report released on Wednesday.

Jodhpur and Durgapura (Jaipur) railway stations are also in the top 5 clean railway stations in the country, the report said.

In the 2018 report, Jodhpur was at the top position, followed by Jaipur.

The North Western Railway (NWR), headquartered in Jaipur, has been ranked the best among the 17 railway zones in the country. NWR, which was the best zone in 2018, got 848.7 points out of 1,000 to stay on the first position. The railway zone got seven of its stations in the top 10 rankers; the others being Durgapura (3rd), Gandhinagar (5th), Suratgarh (6th), Udaipur City (8th) and Ajmer (9th).

The cleanliness survey is an annual exercise carried out by Quality Council of India (QCI), an independent body.

According to the report, there are 8,000 railway stations in India controlled by 17 zones. They are categorised as non-suburban group (NSG), suburban group (SG) and halts, on the basis of revenue and footfall. The NSG stations are further grouped as NSG1, NSG2, NSG3 and NSG4 with revenue in the range of Rs 10 crore and more than Rs 500 crore, and footfall in the range of 2 million and more than 20 million.

For the 2019 survey, 720 NSG and SG stations were considered, the report said. The railway stations have been ranked under NSG and SG categories.

Jaipur ranked first with the overall cleanliness score of 931.75; Jodhpur got the second rank with the score of 927.19 and Durgapura scored 922.50 out of 1,000.

The QCI evaluates railway stations on three broad parameters. These are: process evaluation, direct observation and citizen feedback. The first part of the study involves assessment of processes related to cleanliness at the stations. In the second part, the direct observation, QCI assessors inspected the station premises for cleanliness and presence of different forms of wastes, such as litter, excreta, stain and stagnant water. The third and final part is citizen feedback in which feedback from the passengers about cleanliness at the station is taken. “Finally, they were asked to rate overall experience based on the cleanliness and upkeep of stations,” the report said.

This day also marks the culmination of fortnight-long Swacchta Pakhwara organised across India (including NWR) by Indian Railways to observe cleanliness. ANAND PRAKASH, NWR general manager