Eastern Railway has launched a week-long water quality drive across its stations, offices, workshops and railway colonies, with 7,358 water tanks, pipelines and taps being cleaned and water samples tested to safeguard drinking water supplies for passengers, railway staff and their families.
The drive covers overhead, underground and PVC tanks across the railway network. Cleaning and sanitisation work is being carried out at railway premises, including major stations under the Malda division such as Bhagalpur, Jamalpur and Sahibganj.
Eastern Railway chief public relations officer Shibram Majhi said the 7,358 tanks covered by the exercise are spread across four divisions. The Malda division accounts for 1,153 cleaned tanks, while 2,465 are in Asansol, 2,187 in Howrah and 1,553 in Sealdah.
The initiative also includes systematic testing of water samples collected from drinking water supply points. The tests include monitoring pH levels to assess water quality and evaluate whether the cleaning work is producing the intended results.
Railway authorities have directed that water samples be tested both before and after the cleaning of tanks and associated supply infrastructure. The pre- and post-cleaning checks are intended to establish whether the water supplied on railway premises meets prescribed quality standards.
The exercise extends beyond storage tanks to pipelines and water taps, which form part of the supply network used at railway stations, offices, workshops and residential colonies. This makes the drive a maintenance exercise covering multiple points between water storage and public access.
According to Majhi, the initiative is intended to prevent water-borne diseases through regular maintenance of water storage and supply infrastructure. The beneficiaries include passengers using railway facilities, employees working across Eastern Railway premises and families living in railway colonies.
The division-wise figures indicate that the exercise covers a large and distributed network rather than a limited number of stations. Howrah has the highest number of tanks included in the drive, followed by Asansol, Sealdah and Malda. The railway has not stated in the supplied report whether any water samples have failed prescribed standards or whether additional corrective work has been ordered at specific locations.
The week-long programme will continue with cleaning, sanitisation and water-quality testing across the covered railway premises. Railway authorities are expected to complete the pre- and post-cleaning testing process as part of the exercise.