Mumbai: The Prime Minister can cry himself hoarse about the need for clean toilets but babudom works at its own pace. A swanky air-conditioned toilet at Thane railway station is waiting to be inaugurated for more than a month because its drainage is yet to be connected to the civic sewer. Officials from the railway and the Thane Municipal Corporation have simply not been able to meet.
A senior railway official from the CR said, “The work has been delayed as there are two agencies involved. Permissions need to be taken, which is causing the delay.”
Asked how long would the permissions take, he said, “It can happen in a day or it can take a century.’’ Ideally, it should have been inaugurated on October 2.
Thane is the busiest railway station on the Central Railway with 6.25 lakh commuters per day. Toilets on all railway stations are in a mess. They stink and only the desperate use them. When asked about it, railway officials say in private that their job is to run trains not toilets.
