Hyderabad: The South Central Railways (SCR) registered close to 19,000 complaints over the last three years regarding cleanliness, faulty equipment on board among many other issues according to an RTI query filed by city-based RTI activist Robin Zacheus.
The South Central Railway (SCR), responding to his RTI (Right to Information) query gave details on the total number of complaints received in the last three years between April 2019 and October 2019, on its ‘Railway Madad’ app. Between April 2019 and March 2020, there were a total of 9566 complaints. The numbers reduced to 3790 between April 2020 to March 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic grounding all operations for travellers for a while.
As operations resumed slowly, the number of complaints this year also have slowly risen. Between April 2021 to October 2021, a total of 5533 complaints were registered. In general, most of the complaints were regarding the deteriorating quality of food services, luggage issues, and train delays among others. Close to 1,750 complaints were regarding faulty air conditioners, sexual misconduct, theft among others in April 2021.
There were about 1300 complaints regarding security issues along with 850 complaints regarding sexual harassment this year. Expressing concern over the condition of railways, Robin said, “Commuters utilizing the South Central Railways services deserve world-class service, it is surprising to see the increasing complaints on basic necessities such as AC maintenance, Security and most importantly water availability in the washrooms in Telangana.”
The activist added that the RTI data shows that lack of regular maintenance by contractors and regular inspections by the railway staff. “The SCR must publish a weekly report on their website on all grievances received and the action taken to increase the confidence of the commuters. I would urge railway officials to take up the maintenance works expeditiously,” he told Siasat.com.