Indian Railway

Few days back there was a news item that the woolen blankets which are provided by Railways with the bedding to AC  sleeper class are not washed/dry cleaned for 3 months. There were enough comments from the all sections of society that this is very unhygienic and railway must do some thing about this problem. And it was  really shocking to hear about the response  from Railways and response was that railways will stop supplying the blankets with bedding but maintain the temperature in AC coaches which will be more than 24 degree centigrade plus, so that passengers will not need blankets. This is like, if your limb has some pus formation instead of treating that disease which is causing pus your doctor amputate your limb. Over the years the facilities provided by Railways are going from bad to worse and now they want to even stop them.

I am listing below some of the short comings in the facilities provided by Railways

1. Recently they have announced that in Rajdhani/Shatabdi trains passengers will have choice of booking their tickets with or without meals, they say this is being done after receiving complain from passengers about quality of meals. Here also they are taking a easy way out, instead of improving the quality of food they are telling us to take it or leave it, this is the quality of meal we can serve and do not expect better service from us. This is after taking Rs 300 to 500 per ticket for the meals. If you travel from Mumbai to Delhi what they serve is Evening tea, Dinner , Morning tea and Breakfast. The same will no be costing them more than Rs 150.00 and they have audacity to say we can not give you quality food. I still remember that when Rajdhani train was started  travelling public was very happy that now onward they do not have to carry bedding and food while travelling, but instead of improving services we are going 50 years back.
2.  The cleanliness of General and three tier sleeper coaches is not worth even mentioning in this column, but cleanliness of even upper class coaches are not up to the mark. it does not need much effort to clean coaches, but what is required is dedication of workers and supervising staff. This ” Chalta Hai” attitude has to go.
3. I understand it is very difficult to maintain the security in general compartments as they are very crowded, but security in reserved and AC class compartment is also very lax, as there are enough complains regarding theft from the inside of reserved coaches.
4. There are enough cases reported  about unauthorised entry in the reserved upper class compartments, this generally happens with the help of  checking and operating staff of railways. There is no end to this menace and there is no willingness from Railway Authorities to curb it.
5. There are many prestigious and famous trains whose tickets are generally not available. I have tried booking for some trains on the day the booking is open , even  5 minutes after booking is open you will see that tickets not available . This can only happen when booking staff is favouring some travel agents for some reward. This happens more in vacation or festival times, but still Railways have found no solution for this problem.
6. Another problem is about the infra structure outside the railway stations. There are not enough parking spaces so that you can park your vehicle when you go to either drop or pick some one from the train. The taxi drivers who park their vehicles outside the stations fleece the passengers and Railway police or city police will not act against them.

So in the end my conclusion is that a middle class person who wants to travel by train in comfort, will face more and more difficulties while travelling in future, because it is clear that Railways is not bothered about upper class passengers as their all focus is on for general class. Who ever is the ruling political party at centre, they only see about freight trains for goods movement as they generate big revenue and the ruling political party looks only whether railway is generating big profits or not. What is fun of planning for Bullet train when you can not maintain and give proper services to Upper Class passengers in the present set up. That is why more and more Middle & upper Middle Class people prefer to travel by air.

What you say my friends.

Awaiting for your feed backs and comments.