Kolkata:
The Railway Board has been asked by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC)
to install toilet facilities for metro rail commuters in Kolkata. On Thursday
Railway minister Suresh Prabhu assured that the issue is being looked into
during his visit to the city.
The
NHRC directive comes after months of complaints and persuasion by APDR, a
Kolkata based rights organization which moved NHRC in 2014, saying that absence
of toilet/washroom facilities in the compartments of the Kolkata Metro and the
stations was causing inconvenience to passengers specially senior citizens,
women, children and the ailing.
“The
issue of toilet facility in Kolkata metro is being looked into and steps will
be taken to implement the NHRC's directives,” Prabhu told when asked by media
persons.
In its reply Railway board said that since
its inception the Metro did not have any toilet facilities as it is a rapid
transit system where the waiting time was short due to frequency of trains and
short travel time. The report to NHRC further said that provision of public
toilets at the existing metro stations was not feasible due to non-availability
of space and difficulty in disposal of discharges from the toilets in the
existing system.
APDR
countered the Railway board’s response saying that in its inception the metro
covered a distance of only 3.4 KMs with a travel time of 10 minutes. Now metro
runs a distance of 25.3 Km covering 25 stations with travel time increased to
49 minutes. APDR also pointed out that space have been rented out for
commercial purpose therefore space should not be a problem and that there are
toilets/washrooms for metro staff at all the stations and hence the issue of
disposal of discharges in this era of technology is ridiculous.
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