Fumigation, glue pads and ultra sonic gadgets seems to have failed to prevent rodent and pest scurrying in the train compartment as railways continues to receive several complaints from the passengers regarding rats cutting their footwear and baggage.
Recently, a passenger travelling from Rajdhani Express (Delhi-Ranchi) lodged his complain over his luggage being cut by the rats in his compartment. This is not the single case as rats have become a common sight in trains. While passengers blame the railway staffs for poor maintenance of coaches, the railways authorities condemn the passengers for it who do not dispose of the eatables properly.
Ranchi Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) Deepak Kashyap said, “Passengers ignorant attitude towards disposing edible items is the root cause of the unwanted organisms’ presence in the train compartments. Rats are mostly found in air conditioned coaches. We keep on telling them for proper disposal of the edible but to no avail.”
On an average every month around 3,300 cockroaches have been eliminated and 60 rats have been caught from different trains.
“We conduct pest controlling in Air conditioned coaches and pantry cars of all the trains during every trip and that of sleeper coaches once in every month. Moreover, we use glue pads the most effective measures for catching rodents. We trap minimum five to six rats from it from the trains travelling to north direction,” said Senior Divisional Mechanical Engineer (DME) Jaidev Kuila.
last year as many as 20- 25 complains of rodents have been registered from different trains. Out of these five complains were from Rajdhani Express (Delhi- Ranchi) and nine from Garib Rath express (Bhubaneswar- Hatia), similarly, as many as ten complains were registered about cockroaches and maximum from the express trains.
According to railway authorities the above data excludes the complaints lodged through SMS. However, they (railway authorities) claim that soon the menace of rodents will be curbed due to pest control measures.
As many as two glue pads in AC coaches of all the train are being placed all through the journey and in non- AC coaches they are placed during night times when the possibility of catching the rats is at top.
“Workers are supposed to clean the coaches twice (once in the morning from 5am - 9am and again from 4pm- 8pm) during the journey. Moreover, a supervisor and few janitors have also been deployed in every train to ensure timely cleanness in the coaches and pantry car. Disinfestations are also carried out on platforms in every coach to eliminate mosquitoes, cockroaches and beg bugs,” said Ranchi Railway Division PRO Kalawanti.