Patna: Ranjan Prakash Thakur, the Danapur divisional railway manager under East Central Railway, on Saturday inspected platforms at Patna Junction and the waiting rooms, besides the escalator and other facilities, and instructed officials to keep the premises clean.

The visit was part of redeveloping the station under instructions of the Railway Board.

Thakur inspected the entire station premises, going up to the Karbigahiya end where the railway superspeciality hospital is located. He found one of the paths leading to the hospital dirty, and only used by vendors and local residents. He ordered officials to close off the path, and allow entry to the hospital only from the main gate.

The divisional railway manager also visited platform number 10 and found water leaking from pipes, checked the escalator and work on the washing apron at platform number nine, cleanliness on the foot overbridge, and drinking water availability.

Finding the door to a washroom in the second AC waiting room broken, he directed officials to immediately fix it.

Sources in the railway said the inspection was necessitated after Patna Junction was ranked 91 on a recent cleanliness survey of 407 major stations conducted by the Quality Council of India.

The list includes 75 of the busiest railway stations in the country, which are ranked in A-1 category. Bihar has six stations under this category - Patna, Gaya, Muzaffarpur, Chhapra, Bhagalpur and Darbhanga.

None of Bihar's railway stations figures in the list of top 20 clean stations. Patna Junction scores 719 out of 1,000. So Saturday's inspection was in preparation of the next survey report in July.