PUNE: Several railway passengers on board train number 12780 Goa Express faced a hard time due to the many cockroaches in the air-conditioned bogie on Sunday. After receiving complaints from passengers, the cleaning department sent staff to clean the garbage, but not the cockroaches.
The Goa Express arrived at Pune junction at 4.20 pm from Nizamuddin. The train was already filled with Delhi passengers. The train departed at 3 pm on Saturday.
Smita Deogharia, a passenger, told Sakal Times, “The condition in B2 was pathetic with little cleaning and lot of cockroaches moving on seats, not letting the passengers sleep. Everyone was complaining. After a few minutes, some staff arrived and tried to clean the bogie, but it was still stinking badly.”
The train halted for 15 minutes at the station. In between, the cleaning staff has a duty to clean all the garbage and maintain the bogie to make it passenger friendly.
Railway officials said a private agency had been outsourced the job of carrying out fumigation at regular intervals. They were also supposed to use glue boards to trap rats, cockroaches, which are then disposed of.
“The private agency mostly uses a spray to kill cockroaches. The frequency of fumigation is more in the trains in which passengers approach the staffers with complaints,” said Manoj Kumar Jhawar, PRO of Pune railway division.
Jhawar said since the complaints from passengers were increasing, the private agency would be directed to increase the frequency of fumigation and rat-catching exercises in the long-distance trains.
“Apart from that, the passengers should also take care and avoid throwing food items inside the trains. They should use bins so that the rodents and cockroaches don’t get easy access to food,” said Jhawar.
