Source: Hindustan Times | Image Courtesy: intoday funloan
A passenger, while he was travelling in Mangalore Express was bitten by a rat on 14th March 2016 and had to suffer a bleeding toe for 11 hours before he was aided with medical treatment.
TKG Nair, victim, aged 64, administrator with a petro-chemical company, experienced this on his journey on Monday night. A fellow-passenger tweeted Suresh Prabhu about the failure to provide medical aid by the staff. In response, Mr. Suresh Prabhu, the Railway minister promised that prompt action will be taken against the errant staff.
Though the country’s largest public carrier has initiated a slew of measures to improve passenger amenities, such incidents are regularly reported from across the country. In February, Railways paid Rs 13,000 as compensation to a passenger from Kottayam who too had suffered a rat bite on an AC coach of the Mumbai-Ernakulam Duranto Express.
“The Railways is talking about big things like bullet train and Gatiman Express. What about (the) existing ones? As a regular traveller, I feel the situation is going from bad to worse,” said Nair to the Hindustan Times . Narrating the incident, Nair said he was jolted out of his slumber in an AC three-tier compartment around midnight after the train had left Kottayam station.
“My toe was bleeding and it was painful. (The) TTE made many calls and told me that a medical team would examine me at Ernakulam junction. But nobody turned up there. Then I was told a doctor would attend me in Thrissur. But the situation remained same,” he said.
When the TTE area of jurisdiction ended, he left without uttering a word.
“Next morning, when the train reached Kannur, a medical team came and cleaned my wound with anti-septic lotion. When I asked about an anti-tetanus injection I was told there was no doctor or paramedical staff to apply it. Finally, I was given an injection and some tablets including pain-killer after the train reached its destination Mangalore,” Nair added.
He said that after waking up, he saw a rat scurrying for cover. As all passengers were asleep, he approached the AC mechanic who in turn informed the ticket examiner.
Nair also said that he was planning to approach consumer forum for seeking compensation.
Every long or short distance transportation aid should possess some facilities or the other and especially long distance vehicles should possess minimum required medical facilities. This is not something new in Indian railways. Cockroaches, rats and rodents are part of our daily travel when it comes to railways. We are dreaming big when it comes to railway, but Indian railways fails miserably when it comes to providing basic services to its commuters.
Such incidents pull us back to where we started. A first-aid kid is a must to be kept as a common possession whether during travel or at places that we access daily.
The Logical Indian community requests Indian Railways to look into this matter and to work on providing basic facilities to the commuters.
