Mangaluru: In India, most of the population relies on trains to travel for work or long distances. Hence, regular maintenance and cleanliness of the rail bogies are essential.
Keeping in mind the cleanliness and to provide the best quality travel, the Southern Railways has come forward with an initiative ‘Coach Mitra.’
This initiative ensures clean and tidy bedding, essential repairs, pure drinking water, elimination of termites and other insects and many such essential requirements.
For the initial phase, around 102 trains have been taken into consideration.
It also aims at providing solutions to the passengers when the train is on the move.
According to the roll out from the railway department, the passengers can ask any query by typing in their PNR number and sending an SMS to 9821736069.
In the Palghat division, already about 10 rails have this facility.
Coach Mitra ensures a full-fledged laundry service which will have a capacity of 23000 quality bedding facility.
Already laundries of 6 and 3 tonnes capacity have been established in Basin Bridge and Kochuveli respectively.
Currently, a decision to open laundries in Mangaluru, Nagara Kovil, Coimbatore, Madurai, and Ernakulam has been taken, which will facilitate cleaning and ironing of 13000 beddings through machines.
Already tender has been called for 1 tonne laundry by the Palghat division for Mangaluru Central Railway Station which will be established in Ullal.
In 6,603 bogies of Southern Railways, biological toilets will be installed within a short span of time among which 5,443 are already installed with this facility.
The routes from Rameshwaram–Manamadurai, Tiruchirappalli–Manamadurai, Madurai–Manamadurai, Virudhunagara–Manamadurai, and Shoranur–Nilambur will be called “Green Train Corridor” as the trains passing from these routes will be having biological toilets.
The Southern Railways has also decided to implement “Clean Train Station” initiative in 73 railway stations including the Mangaluru Central Railway Station.
