Mumbai: Central Railways' grand vision to have corporates, builders and private companies adopt railway stations and build toilet blocks seems to have gone down the drain due to lack of interest displayed by potential developers.
More than four months ago, senior officials of the network and General Manager Subodh Jain had proposed construction of '5-star' toilets. They had also identified stations like Dadar, Thane, Kalyan, Vikhroli, Kurla and CST for the same. However, CR sources said they were not approached by any of the developers.
"We are in talks with Sulabh Shauchalaya to establish toilets at Thane (E) and (W). These will be in addition to the existing ones and will be on an experimental basis," said a senior CR official on condition of anonymity. Officials claim that Sulabh have asked them to develop the blocks that they would maintain, but the railways want them to do the entire job.
Washout?
However, striking a more dispirited note, Subodh Jain said, "Our talks with Sulabh are not going as expected. But we are trying to sort things out." According to the proposal, at these toilets, the contractor can also charge users for the urinal, which is not the case otherwise. Presently, railway toilets have pay-and-use facilities, where people are charged only for defecating.
The so-called 5-star toilets were expected to have steady water supply, hygienic conditions that were to be impeccably maintained, and striking interiors. "We wanted these toilet blocks to be similar to the ones at shopping malls and theatres.
The whole idea was that builders and big corporate houses could develop them at the stations close to their offices and we would give them advertisement rights," said another CR official.
Apart from this, there were also talks about giving away four smaller stations close to one of the major ones to the developer for advertising purposes. But all this hasn't worked out so far. Time and again commuters have complained about the pathetic conditions of existing toilet blocks at stations. Ladies' toilets are usually dirty and remain locked most of the time.
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