The Union Ministry of Tourism has announced that Mysore Railway Station
has won the "Most Tourist-friendly Railway Station in India" award. This
is probably on par with Mysore City Corporation winning the "Second
Cleanest City in India" award. It is either a joke or the other railway
stations in India must be truly horrible.
The reason why it is not easy to muster any enthusiasm for the award is
plain to see. The shortcomings of the Mysore station are endless. Let us
list just a few.
Seating on the platforms is seriously inadequate. Similarly drinking
water and toilet facilities. These problems are especially acute on the
CFTRI side where there are no seats, no drinking water and no toilets.
The only toilets available in the station seem to be pay toilets. Since
there are no free toilets, everyone uses the toilets on the trains which
are standing on the platforms leading to stench all through the day.
Due to lack of proper policing, people also use the open area at the end
of the extended platform for urination and this makes the seats on the
extended platform unusable because of the bad smell.
The station is very unfriendly towards the disabled and the elderly.
Wheelchairs take forever between the station entrance/exit and the train
for platforms other than No. 1. Since the platform heights do not match
the floor height of the trains, the elderly and the disabled have a
tough time climbing aboard or alighting from trains.
What few facilities are available, they are available only on platform
1. The other platforms have no food or beverage vending, no information
booths, no newspapers and not even dust bins.
One can also add lack of proper parking facilities both on the main and
CFTRI side, fleecing by the parking contractor, inadequate ticketing
counters during the peak hours, inadequate information boards on all the
platforms and an inefficient public announcement system.
With so many glaring problems, it is astounding that Mysore station has
been voted the "Most Tourist-friendly Railway Station in India". We have
been campaigning for several years to get the facilities improved, but
our requests have been ignored for one reason or the other. Now, with
the "Most Tourist-friendly Railway Station in India" feather in their
cap, the authorities are even less likely to listen to the complaints of
the public.
R Chandra Prakash, Mysore Grahakara Parishat