Southern Railway Rebuts Reports Of Being Tardy In Implementing Swachh Bharat Mission

Southern Railway has rebutted reports that it has not been showing interest in implementing the Swachh Bharat Mission, a pet project of the Narendra Modi Government. In a rejoinder to a report in Times of India, R K Kulshrestha, Southern Railway General Manager, said the railway division winning the Cleanliness Shield in 2014-15 and 2015-16 is a proof enough of its record with regard to Swachh Bharat Mission.

Stating that statistics pertaining to fines imposed for littering were incomplete as they did not include details of fines imposed by agencies other than commercial department like Railway Protection Force, Kulshrestha said the report had not taken into account the railway division’s exemplary work on cleanliness.

Providing a consolidated figure, Southern Railway said during 2014-15, it penalised 4,683 persons and collected Rs 9.75 lakh, while in 2015-16 the division had levied a penalty of Rs 14.39 lakh pulling up 6,114 persons for littering its premises. In 2016-17, the number went up to 8,090 fetching the division Rs 15.22 lakh and in the current fiscal it has collected a record fine of Rs 1.13 crore penalising 55,004 persons.

The Southern Railway also said it had conducted 925 cleanliness drives upto January this fiscal, up from 618 last fiscal and 994 in 2015-16. Southern Railway has ordered all its divisions to maintain the momentum in cleanliness activities.