Railways to provide dustbins in all 60,000 coaches soon: Suresh Prabhu

NEW DELHI: All the 60,000 coaches in Indian Railways will soon be provided with user-friendly dustbins, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu today said.

Barring air-condition (AC) and a few non-AC sleeper coaches, majority of coaches currently don't have dustbins resulting in problems in disposing garbage by the passengers in moving trains.

"All the 60,000 coaches will be provided with dustbins and the target will be reached as soon as possible," Prabhu said, reminding about the promise made in the Railway Budget this year, while addressing a conference on 'rail coach interior' here.

Currently, both AC and non-AC LHB coaches are being provided with two dustbins at both ends of the bogie. All conventional AC coaches manufactured at Integrated Coach Factory at Chennai are also equipped with dustbins.

Stating that a lot of progress has been made in making passenger coaches more user-friendly, he laid emphasis on clean toilets, linen, curtains and making the seat, the ladders to climb the berths more user-friendly.

Prabhu also suggested developing a model for revenue generation tapping the opportunities that a contemporary looking coach can generate.

Indian Railways carry over 2.5 crore passenger every day where travelling hour for a passenger in sleeper class coach is about 16 hours.

Keeping this facts in mind, he said, the emphasis should be on "designing the entire architecture of services catering to all including the poor".

He said the National Institute of Fashion Technology and National Institute of Design are also making progress in design of the coach interiors.