Kochi: Southern Railways has finally started the process of setting up a mechanised laundry at Ernakulam South, Mangalore and Madurai, a development that will help commuters of long haul trains originating from here avail clean, pressed and packaged railway linen in the near future. “The mechanised laundry is being set up on a BOOT (Build-Own-Operate-Transfer) basis for 10 years at Ernakulam, Mangalore, Coimbatore and Madurai. It will also be set up in Thiruvananthapuram station at a later stage. The laundry will have a capacity to handle upto four tonnes,” said a senior railway officer.
“Though the plan was conceived in 2015, the project never got off. But the Southern Railway General Manager announced in the recent Zonal Railway Users Consultative Committee meet held in Chennai that the project works have started,” said Paul K. J. Manvettom, president, All-Kerala Rail Users Association, who took part in the meet. The pre-tender meeting is scheduled to be held at the Southern railways headquarters at Chennai and the tender is likely to be floated by the middle of next month.
Now the facility is available only at Chennai and Kochuveli. It has been the complaint of passengers especially in air-conditioned coaches of long haul trains that the linen provided to them, including bedrolls, are unhygienic, dirty and smelly. Although the railways had insisted its contractors wash the bedsheets after every trip. the latter adhered to the rule that the linen should be used only once after every wash. “A site has been identified near the Ernakulam Marshalling yard to set up the facility,” the officer said.
