RailEnquiry

Gulbarga: What does it take to wake up babudom to its duties?  For the railways, it appears only the appointment of a new minister can do the trick.     Railway officers, who for years had turned their back on the stinking corridors, toilets and waiting rooms at the railway stations of Gulbarga, Yadgir, Wadi Junction and other nearby areas, seem to have suddenly realised its time to get cracking on doing the repairs.    Their inertia seemed to drop even as  senior Congress leader, Mallikarjun Kharge was in the process of taking over as Union railway minister. Waking up from their deep slumber, the railway officers got into a flurry of activity to give a facelift to the stations, white-washing walls splattered with gutka and pan masala stains, replacing broken slabs on platforms, repairing restrooms and drinking water taps  and opening public telephone booths.   Three teams of workers from Sholapur, the headquarter of SCR, are currently toiling day and night to repair, repaint, replace and refurbish the stations in time to accord the new minister, who is expected to  arrive here, possibly on July 10, a grand welcome.   Making sure there are no hiccups are senior officers of the railways including general managers of SCR and the Central Railways, who have been camping here for a couple of days to oversee the repairs and renovation of the stations.    Rather than applaud the work underway, locals have greeted it with cynicism, wondering why the railways couldn’t have done any of this earlier.    “The  railways have  ignored our pleas for three decades and now have suddenly swung into action. Does it take a person from our area becoming a railway minister for them to keep the stations clean and tidy?” wonders Umakanth Nigudagi, president of the Hyderabad Karnataka Chamber of Commerce and Industry.