Over 2,300 stations lack prescribed passenger amenities

The government on Wednesday disclosed that 2,376 railway stations in the country lack prescribed passenger amenities.

According to Railway Minister Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu, out of a total 8,472 railway stations in the country, 2,376 lack prescribed passenger amenities.

"Minimum essential amenities are provided at stations on Indian Railways as per norms," Prabhu informed the Lok Sabha during the question hour.

"However, shortfall in amenities occur due to upward revision in scale of amenities at various categories of stations," the minister said in a written reply to a question.

The minister further said that shortfall mainly exists at 'D', 'E' and 'F' categories of stations which account for about 84 percent of the total stations having shortfall in amenities.

"These stations deal with relatively lesser volume of passenger traffic," the minister said.

The Indian railways has seven categories of stations, namely 'A-1', 'A', 'B', 'C','D', 'E' and 'F' based on the station's annual earnings from passenger traffic.

Prabhu informed that his ministry has issued guidelines for provision of passenger amenities at stations through utilisation of funds under CSR (corporate social responsibility) and MPLAD (Member of Parliament Local Area Development).

"Ministry of Railways has also issued guidelines for provision of passenger amenities at stations through utilisation of funds under CSR, MPLAD etc to supplement the efforts made by Railways to improve passenger amenities at railway stations," the minister added.

--IANS

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