Ranchi, May 23: Railway stations in the east have been found wanting in cleanliness and sanitation by a report tabled in Parliament last week.

In an exercise, stated to be the first of its kind in the country, the audit report of the Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) asserts that most station managers viewed cleanliness as a secondary activity.

The unique auditing, conducted at as many as 298 railway stations across the country, was a joint exercise by auditors from CAG’s office and the railways. This is also said to be the first CAG report that makes extensive use of photographs.

Mechanised cleaning of stations, for which machines were acquired by the railways, has failed to take off in many stations, notes the report. The machines either developed defects or power points were not easily available. At some stations like Howrah, Chapra and Asansol, the machines could not be used because of the absence of smooth surface of the platform.

At other stations like Sealdah, Patna and Bhubaneswar, the machines could not be used in the absence of “trained staff”.

Though the Railway Board prescribes a minimum of 10 toilets and 10 urinals for A-category stations, six for the B-category and four for the C-category stations, most stations fall short of the norm.

At Midnapur station of Kharagpur division of South Eastern Railway, a toilet was constructed between platform numbers 2 and 3. But it was too close to the track and has remained locked and out of bounds for the passengers. At Jamalpur station on Eastern Railway, the toilets were being used as godowns.

There was no water supply in urinals and toilets at several stations including Sealdah and Burdwan. Sixty-five per cent of C-category stations do not provide drinking water at the prescribed scale.

Indeed, as many as 34 out of the 298 stations reviewed had inadequate water supply. Howrah, Sealdah and Ranchi stations figured prominently among the water-deficient stations, reported the public fund monitor.

The auditors found garbage scattered all over the premises in “circulating areas” of stations such as Bhubaneswar, Rourkela, Durgapur and Ranchi besides Delhi and 68 other stations.

The report criticises the railways for not even assessing the requirement of dustbins at 76 per cent of the stations reviewed.

As many as 42 stations did not have a dust-bin on the day of the inspection. The rail board has not laid down any norm for dustbins; as a result, their availability fluctuated wildly from the lowest recorded at Burdwan and the highest at Chennai. But even at Chennai, the number of dustbins was 28 for 10,000 passengers, the report records.