Title - HC judge ticks off railways over dirty linen in AC coaches

CHENNAI: It's been a year since CBI raided a few trains and seized dirty bed linen and bed rolls at the Central and Egmore railway stations . But nothing has changed.Recently, a judge of the Madras high court shot off a letter to the Southern Railway general manager stating that the bed rolls supplied to him and other passengers on an AC II tier coach of Nellai Express on August 19 were smelly and dirty."This is not the first time when I have had this experience. The bed rolls supplied to passengers are not washed," said Justice R S Ramanathan in his letter. He also asked the railways to supply properly washed bed rolls to passengers in the AC coaches.Red tape and lack of proper checks or supervision continue to make travelling a nightmare on trains operated by Southern Railway .In spite of repeated complaints , the railways continues to supply dirty bed linen to its passengers in air-conditioned coaches on mail and express trains.Though the railways insists that its contractors wash the sheets after every trip, on most occasions passengers who travel from Chennai receive clean sheets while used sheets and bed rolls are pressed and supplied for the return journey.Passengers who travel to the city from cities like Madurai, Nagercoil, Coimbatore , Thiruvananthapuram , Kochi and other cities are forced to use stained pillows, bed sheets and bed rolls. As per rule, sheets should be used only once and railways should ensure that trains carry adequate number of fresh sheets for return journey. But, this is hardly followed.

"Berths are dirty in sleeper class while unwashed sheets are supplied to passengers on AC coaches . I have seen passengers spend sleepless nights because of bed bugs in AC coaches," said T Achuthan , a frequent traveller.

Southern Railway chief public relations officer V J Accamma said: "Railways is planning to take over supply of sheets and bed rolls. A washing plant that will have capacity to wash 1,000 sheets is being set up at Basin Bridge. A tender will be floated to set up a similar plant in Thiruvananthapuram. We tell our contractors to supply clean sheets." The anti corruption branch of the CBI raided Trivandrum Mail, Cheran Express, Pandian Express, Rockfort Express , Bangalore Mail, Nellai Express and Yercaud Express in August 2011. But, dirty sheets are still supplied in these trains.