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‘Clean My Coach' app offers fast-response train cleaning
22nd of July 2015A mobile 'Clean My Coach' app is being launched on India's railways in a bid to provide a fast-response cleaning system on board.
Rail passengers will be able to send an online request or text message to officials when a particular carriage needs cleaning. The rail network will then forward the request to the cleaner on duty. Clean-ups will be attended to within 15 minutes, claim the railways.
The aim is to implement the app - which is still in pilot mode - on all long-distance train journeys across the country after successful testing.
The move comes as part of a major government drive to clean up India's railways which have long been associated with foul smells, unclean toilets and refuse. A 40 per cent increase in funds to improve sanitation and cleanliness was recently made available to the rail network.
For the first time there is a separate housekeeping wing charged with cleaning up India's trains. The on-board housekeeping service carries out scheduled coach-cleaning twice a day along with unscheduled cleaning on demand. The cleaning team also keeps the toilets in all first class coaches topped up with liquid soap and toilet paper.
In other moves to improve the rail service, direct discharge from toilets is to be stopped and bio-toilets are to be rolled out in all trains.
And the government will launch an 'adopt-a-station' scheme under which corporate companies, NGOs and charitable trusts can take responsibility for the upkeep of a particular station.