Minister to pick up broom for Railway cleanliness drive on October 2

The drive will focus more on voluntary labour rather than just awareness campaign

In a first of its kind massive cleanliness campaign, Railway Minister Sadananda Gowda will lead from the front by himself picking up the broom during the drive at rail premises on October 2 involving all its employees and top level officials.

"All our 1.3 million employees will be participating in cleanliness campaign at various stations on October 2. All our officers including Board Members and myself will be also participating in the cleanliness drive," Railway Minister Sadananda Gowda said here today.

October 2 is Gandhi Jayanti and according to sources many ministries including Railways are planning to carry out cleanliness drive across the country to mark the day.

He said the drive will focus more on "shramdaan" (voluntary labour) rather than just awareness campaign and all senior officers of Board have been assigned various zones and divisions for participation and monitoring the campaign.

Cleanliness is a major issue for railways as majority of the complaints are either related to unclean coaches and platforms or catering service.

"We have received a large number of complaints on cleanliness issues at stations and in trains. A series of steps have been taken to improve cleanliness and we have earmarked 40 per cent more fund allocations than the last year for this," he said.

He said a separate department for stations level to board level to keep up the cleanliness of stations and trains is being set up. "Currently multiple agencies are involved for maintaining cleanliness so we are creating a separate department exclusive for this."

He said till now 665 stations have been inspected and more stations will be covered to maintain cleanliness.