A view of a crowded platform on the Tatanagar railway station

Jamshedpur, Dec. 14: The platforms chock-a-block with sleeping passengers and portico filled with retiring passengers, speaks volumes about the amenities offered at the Tatanagar railway station.

This model station under the Chakradharpur division of the South Eastern Railway, which comes under Class-I category and register an average 50,000 footfall everyday does not have sufficient space in the waiting halls and retiring rooms to accommodate even a fraction of passengers.

Every day more than 500 passengers are forced to sleep on the platforms, main portico, area, in front of the ticket counter and floor of the waiting hall due to inadequate space in the retiring rooms. The station, which receives more than 50,000 passengers every day ? sizeable number of which comes in at night ? has a capacity to accommodate just 40 individuals in the retiring room and another 100 in waiting halls. The 40 in retiring room include 24 beds in the dormitory.

Rajesh Singh Munda, a passenger from Seraikela, who frequently visits Calcutta for business, said mostly he has to spend the night by sleeping on the platform. ?Seraikela is about 40 km from the station and there is no transportation available in the wee hours. If I have to catch the Tata-Howrah Steel Superfast in the morning, I leave my house at night, and stay in the platform,? said Munda.

?In the last three years I have travelled to Calcutta more than 30 times. Of these times I was forced sleep on platform about 25 times. Only on some occasion I was fortunate to get a bed in the dormitory,? added Arun Kumar Sahu, another passenger who was sleeping in the portico.

He had come to the city for the first time on his way to Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh. ?I have travelled to many cities in the country including Mumbai and Delhi but the space of waiting room here not even makes it fit for a third-grade station,? fumed Sahu. Railway authorities, however, appeared least concerned about the plight of night passengers. ?At present we are working on improving cleanliness and traffic congestion in an around the platform. Once these two things are set on track we will look on other aspects,? said an official.

Station manager T.K. Bhattacharjee also toed a similar line.

?We have started upgrading passenger amenities at the station. In this, cleanliness and traffic congestion is on the top of our priority list. We have already invited tenders from private parties to out-source cleanliness-related job in an around the station. Close circuit cameras has been installed to monitor the movement of vehicles coming to our station to ensure smooth flow. Once these two things are taken care of we will think of other,? said Bhattacharjee.