Over 1,000 rats caught on Rajdhani this year

The Western Railway (WR) has caught over 1,000 rats on the prestigious Mumbai-Delhi Rajdhani Express in 2010.

Following persistent passenger complaints, WR set up rat traps or glue boards in every coach in Rajdhani and August Kranti Rajdhani on the Mumbai-Delhi route and on Shatabdi on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad route about six months ago. A senior official said WR began setting up rodent-control measures in April 2010. Till last month, the number of rats caught and disposed off was about 922. This month, the figure exceeded 1,000.

The traps are placed beneath the berths when the trains come to Mumbai and are taken to the yard at Mumbai Central for maintenance. Railway officials said rats are attracted into the trains by the smell of food and are hence found in the coaches. They added that they were finding ways to deal with the hygiene problem caused by rats once and for all.

The glue boards are either kept inside cages or without them. Rats get attracted to them and die. The sweepers then dispose them off.

“It is a matter of shame that the railways have to keep rat traps in a prestigious train like Rajdhani Express despite awarding pest control contracts worth lakhs of rupees. The railways should be take care to shut the doors of the train when it is parked in the yards,” said Shailesh Goyal, member of the National Railway Users Consultative Council.

Passengers say the rodents on the train include not just rats but also cockroaches and other pests. “There are not just rats but cockroaches too. They could also lead to panic and chaos on the running train,” Anshuman Mehta, a businessman and a regular commuter, said.

WR chief spokesperson Sharat Chandrayan said, “Initially, we used to trap rats only at terminal stations. Now, with glue boards and rat traps in place, rodents in the train will also be caught while the train is on the move.”

“Earlier, we simply used to keep glue boards. But passengers complained that their luggage and belongings would get stuck to the boards. To do away with this problem, we started to put glue boards in cages,” he added.