Guwahati: Guwahati railway station has been ranked 21 among the A1 category railway stations in the country in terms of cleanliness, a survey has revealed.

The Third Party Survey on station cleanliness was released by Union railways minister Piyush Goyal on Monday. It was conducted by the Quality Council of India (QCI), an autonomous body that works to assure quality standards across all spheres of economic and social activities.

Guwahati railway station scored 863.86 out of 1,000. Jodhpur and Jaipur were the first and second among the A1 category stations scoring 977.97 and 972.30 respectively.

Among the A-category stations, Bongaigaon was ranked 84, Barpeta Road 115, Rangiya Junction 120, Jorhat Town 216, Silchar 256, Lumding 259, Dimapur 266, Tinsukia 295 and Dibrugarh Town 305.

Among the railway zones, the Northeast Frontier Railway was ranked 10, same as last year.

The parameters adopted for conducting the survey were the evaluation of process of cleanliness in parking, main entry area, main platform, waiting room, direct observation by the council's assessors of cleanliness in these areas and passenger feedback. A 24x7 control room was set up and images were geo-tagged to monitor progress.

This is the third such audit-cum-survey, which has been conducted by the railways to increase the level of cleanliness by identifying unclean spots/gaps and to improve cleanliness standards and also to propel healthy competition among railway stations.

The first survey conducted by the IRCTC in 2016 by conducting interviews of passengers at the stations on various parameters of cleanliness and rating them on these bases. The second survey was conducted in 2017 by the council.

For the purpose of survey and audit, the council had trained and deployed 160 assessors to ensure quality and consistency in the country. It has deployed two persons on each station for two days and the central team consisted of three persons for 25 days.

After releasing the report, Goyal said the railways has been prioritising cleanliness, punctuality and catering services for the passengers.

"In the past four years, Swachh Rail Swachh Bharat Campaign has witnessed tremendous improvement in terms of cleanliness in waiting area, platforms, trains, toilets and parking at the stations," he said.

According to the report, compared to 2017, there is 9 per cent improvement in top 100 stations, 14 per cent in the next 100 stations, 20 per cent in 201-300 stations and 31 per cent in 301-407 stations.

Ten zones have shown 10-20 per cent improvement, four zones have improved more than 20 per cent and two zones have shown less than 10 per cent improvement in cleanliness as compared to 2017.