Scores of passengers who travel every day by suburban trains in Mumbai can now look forward to having some relief from stink and stench in the station premises. Continuing with its campaign to provide a clean environment for its passengers, Western Railway has outsourced overall upkeep of a few suburban railway stations in Mumbai to All Services Global Pvt Limited in June this year. All Services maintains 14 railway stations in India out of which the suburban stations in Mumbai include Jogeshwari, Goregaon, Kandivali and Borivali stations. Speaking to CIJ, Virendra K Bhatt, CEO of All Services said, “If the garbage is not cleared regularly from the railway platform, track and drainage, with every passing train a huge amount of garbage will be gathered making the cleaning difficult. Illegal vendors and beggars are the main sources for littering in station premises.”
All Services have deployed a range of cleaning equipment from Roots Multiclean, Eureka Forbes and Taski like ride-on sweeper, ride-on scrubber, industrial vacuum cleaners, backpack, flipper machines, jet machines and steam machines to maintain the railway premises. About 114 janitors are working in three shifts. Bhatt added, “Passengers are there round-the-clock on the platforms. So it is very difficult to do the intensive cleaning of the platform. Toilet is another area which is overcrowded and occupied throughout the day due to which we are unable to give intensive cleaning, though general maintenance is done. For security reasons, we are not allowed to keep the dustbins on the platforms which is one of main causes for littering. Also people do not cooperate to keep the platforms clean. They believe that it is the job of safaiwala to maintain the station. A station can be maintained only with cooperation from railway staff and passengers.”
All Service also maintains Chennai Central, Yeshwantpur Railway Station, Secunderabad, Surat and Delhi Metro (Rajeev Chowk, Kashmiri Gate, Nehru Place, Kalkaji & Govindpuri) stations.