Title - Stench, squalor pervade railway station

PUNE: A day after divisional railway manager (Pune) Vishal Agarwal spoke about cleanliness and passengers' convenience, the Pune railway station was a revolting sight and as bad as a garbage dump.Hundreds of railway passengers arriving at Pune station were in for a rude experience on Wednesday, going by the filthy and unclean conditions on the platforms and the railway tracks. People covered their noses to avoid the stench emanating from the faeces on the tracks. Unpicked garbage including empty plastic bottles, used plastic cups and food packets were all over the platforms. The washbasins were choked and overflowing.Cleanliness work at the station has been affected severely for the last two days as workers, appointed on a contract basis, are on strike. The Central Railway has penalized the contractor for unsatisfactory work. The workers are protesting because the contractor has put the burden of fine on them.Agarwal on Tuesday said that the penalty had been imposed for unsatisfactory work. The agreement with the present contractor will end in December, he said.Public relations officer Y K Singh said they had asked the contractor to resolve the labour problem. A meeting was held between the railway administration and the contractor to resolve the issues. The contractor has deployed about 80 workers.

Meanwhile, the premises were pathetic and there appeared no end in sight to the strike. Singh said a clear idea of the situation will be known on Thursday. The railways, he said, was going by the agreement with the contractor who was fined for unsatisfactory work. It was up to the contractor to resolve the issue with his workers, he added.

As an alternative arrangement, the Central Railway had deployed its workers for cleaning, he said. Announcements were made through the public address system asking passengers not to use the toilets while the trains were at the station, he said.