Swachh Bharat Abhiyan appears to have the Rail Budget too in its thrall. And set to benefit from it are private players.

“Ensuring higher standards of cleanliness is of utmost priority for us. We want to make Swachh Rail the driving force behind this government’s flagship programme — Swachh Bharat Abhiyan,” said Suresh Prabhu, Minister of Railways, while presenting the Rail Budget.

Focus on maintenance

Proposing a new department for keeping stations and trains clean, Prabhu said integrated cleaning will be taken up as a specialised activity and the government will engage professional agencies, besides training the staff. While the Minister refrained from announcing ambitious new projects, he expects higher financial outgo for maintenance, safety and cleanliness activities during the next five years.

Better toilet facilities, both on trains and in stations, ‘integrated cleaning’, bio-toilets and redevelopment of stations are some of the measures proposed by the Minister. While these are not new—bio-toilets were introduced in 2012 by the UPA government—Prabhu promised accelerated development of these.

“So far, we have replaced the existing toilets with 17,388 bio-toilets. This year, we intend to replace another 17,000 toilets,” Prabhu said, while adding the Research, Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO) will also design vacuum toilets within six months. With cleanliness being a major concern both on trains, tracks and in stations, accelerated deployment of bio-toilets on trains is focussed upon.

The older models of toilets would result in corrosion of tracks and massive financial losses. Further, Prabhu announced that new toilets will be built in 650 additional stations, compared with 120 stations last year.

Upgrading stations

Besides focussing on cleanliness and sanitation, the government has proposed to increase by 200 the number of stations identified for upgrade of passenger amenities under the Adarsh Station scheme. “So far, 1,052 stations have been identified,” Prabhu said. Upgrade of passenger amenities are expected to cost the government ₹12,500 crore over five years. Private players will also be roped in for development of stations, through the process of open bidding.

“While the process for development of the already selected stations will continue, for the rest of the stations, we propose to revamp the station redevelopment policy completely and simplify processes for faster redevelopment, by inviting open bids from interested parties,” he said.

“Anyone can participate in this bidding with their designs and ideas by providing the operational requirements of the Railways for running trains at these stations.”

Related Topics