ProMASS News Bureau: Mar 18, 2016:
New Jalpaiguri station under Katihar Division of Northeast Frontier Railway brought laurels to the zone as it obtained 10th rank in the national ranking of clean stations. The ranking was part of the “Preliminary Report on Assessment of Cleanliness Standards at Major Railway Stations” which was released at Rail Bhawan, New Delhi yesterday by Union Minister of Railways, Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu. Dr Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Manoj Sinha Union Minister of State for Railways and A.K. Mital, Chairman, Railway Board were also present. Among the A1 stations in India, New Jalpaiguri station of N.F.Railway was ranked 10th by passengers while Surat, Rajkot and Bilaspur received the 1st, 2nd and 3rd places. In a Press Release, Chief Public Relations Officer of NFR, P J Sharma informed this today.
In the Rail Budget presented in Feb’ 2015 and 2016, series of measures to improve the cleanliness on stations were announced to take forward the momentum of ‘Swachh Rail Swachh Bharat’. One of the measures undertaken in Feb’2016 Budget is the ranking of A1 and A category stations based on regular periodic third party audit and feedback from passengers. The task of survey was entrusted to Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), who engaged M/s TNS India Pvt. Ltd. for undertaking this work.
Purely based on the passenger feedback on the cleanliness of stations and the analysis there-of, 407 major stations have been given rankings in the Preliminary Report submitted by the survey agency through IRCTC to Ministry of Railways for scrutiny and further action. Notably, New Jalpaiguri station has been ranked above many stations of other metro cities.
