Date:20/11/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/11/20/stories/2008112054000500.htm

Tamil Nadu

It’s red light for facilities at Tirupur Railway Station

R. Vimal Kumar

Inadequate ticket counters, stinking toilets confront thousands of passengers

Photo: M. Balaji

No option: Long queues in front of ticket counters are a regular feature at Tirupur Railway Station. –

Tirupur: Tale of woes continues to haunt the thousands of railway passengers transiting through Tirupur everyday, as basic amenities in the railway station remain far from satisfactory.

Lack of adequate number of counters to issue reservation as well as daily tickets, stinking toilets on Platform No:1, insufficient number of bathrooms and toilets on Platform No:2 and unclean platform floors, are some of the problems that the passengers have to confront if they happen to move through Tirupur station.

K. Selvaraj, coordinator, Rail Passengers Welfare Association, told The Hindu that considering the growing passenger volume, the authorities should establish two more reservation counters in addition to the two functioning now.

The passengers by and large feel that for a station which issues about 1,000 reservation tickets every day, additional facilities should be set up without any delay.

“Similarly, at least two more counters with one on each platform, should be introduced to issue daily tickets,” Mr. Selvaraj said.

At present, there is only one counter in each of the two platforms for issuing a total of about 3,000 daily tickets a day.

Besides, these counters are also issuing about 1,500 platform tickets and numerous season tickets resulting in long queues of people.

Railway sources said that to ease the load, an additional counter had been opened during peak hours (6 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. to midnight) on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

But travellers are of the opinion that the action is “inadequate” considering the fact that the traffic volume through the station has always been more or less uniform throughout the week.

Regarding the complaints on insufficient number of toilets, official sources said that the problem would be solved soon once the construction of the sanitary complex underway near the R.M.S. office was completed.

The railway officials, however, expressed helplessness on the grievances of the passengers pertaining to unclean floors citing “insufficient staff strength.”

“Even after laying of granite floorings, only two sweepers have been allocated for the station to look after the entire stretch of two platforms, totalling 1,400 metre, making the cleaning process difficult,” an official pointed out.