Not enough time to spruce up rail coaches

Looking at the bed bugs and mosquitoes on the Mysore-Ajmer Express on Thursday night, passengers of a particular coach pulled the chain and brought the train to a halt just before the Bangalore City Railway Station. The coach was then replaced with another and that delayed the train by two hours, but the passengers were unhappy with the changed coach also.

The action of the passengers has brought the focus on poor maintenance of coaches. When contacted, Railway officials attributed poor maintenance of train coaches to lack of time for carrying out pest control treatment.

A source in South Western Railway said: Post-pest control treatment, the coach requires 24-hour idling time. But they get only three hours. Coaches cannot be kept idle for 24 hours as there is shortage.

Vedavyas Koulagi, a passenger travelling to Hubli by the Mysore-Ajmer Express train, said that the second air-conditioned coach was old and filled with mosquitoes and bedbugs. Though the passengers complained about it to the ticket collector and the guard, nothing was done. So, they were forced to pull the chain just before the Bangalore City Railway Station arrived, thus forcing officials concerned to take action.

Official take on issue

Sunanda Arul, Additional Divisional Manager, Bangalore, South Western Railway, blamed the Mysore division for the Thursdays incident. She said that the maintenance of coaches was the responsibility of the Mysore Division and claimed that none of the Bangalore Division coaches had bedbugs as they undergo treatment for bedbugs with a natural pesticide.

We send clean coaches from here. But when the trains return to Bangalore, we find our pest-free coaches replaced with pest-infested coaches.

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Not enough time to spruce up rail coaches