Mumbai: The Indian Railways has thrown its weight behind a massive clean-up campaign announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with elaborate plans to launch its own cleanliness drive.

As part of the nationwide cleanliness campaign beginning on October 2, Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday, rail employees across the country will step out of their homes on a national holiday to celebrate the “clean” new beginnings.

Schoolchildren will perform skits and plays while scouts and guides will carry banners asking people to keep their stations, platforms, trains, tracks, offices, workshops and railway housing colonies clean.

Perhaps, it is for the first time that a prime minister has given so much importance to cleanliness being observed everywhere in a country often criticised for its litter problem.

Taking a cue from Modi, Union Railway Minister Sadananda Gowda will take the lead and pick up a broom during the clean-up drive.

In Mumbai, Central Railway (CR) chief public relations officer Narendra Patil said: “Officers have been nominated at Divisional and Zonal headquarters covering 44 D class stations and 2013 E class stations. These stations have been provided with additional imprest of Rs2,000 each (Dh120). Moreover, 22 senior level officers have been nominated in two shifts to monitor 11 major stations such as Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Dadar, Kurla, Lokmanya Tilak Terminus, Ghatkopar, Thane, Dombivili, Kalyan, Panvel and outside Mumbai in Igatpuri and Lonavla.”

The CR has also made other arrangements to get the rail premises cleaned by nominating 106 additional officers in two shifts to monitor 69 suburban stations that fall within the Mumbai Division.

“Besides, six personnel officers, six engineering officers and six health inspectors have been asked to monitor cleanliness drive at railway residential colonies,” Patil said.

Over 100 officers have also been put in charge of Bhusaval, Solapur, Nagpur and Pune — which come under CR.

Already, contracts are in place at various classes of stations — 60 for mechanised cleaning, 61 for rag picking and 69 for garbage disposal.

Ticket collectors have been advised to monitor and impose fines on those found littering the stations.

The Railway Protection Force personnel have been instructed to intensify checks to nab unauthorised vendors and persons in station premises.

Maintaining cleanliness and hygiene has not always been a strongpoint of Indian Railways which is one of the world’s largest railway networks that employ over 1.4 million employees. With 115,000km of tracks and 7,172 stations, the Indian Railways carried 8.4 billion passengers in 2013. Half of them were suburban passengers, mainly in Mumbai. Rail passengers are hoping that such drives will make travel far more pleasant.