Corporate Citizen Claps for Rajasthan for bagging the top 3 positions in the most recent cleanliness survey report - ‘swachh rail swachh Bharat’ - released by the union railway ministry

The pink city of Jaipur, the royal city of Jodhpur and the Durgapura Railway Station in Jaipur are the top three railway stations amongst a list of 720 railway stations surveyed across the country. Jaipur scored 931.75 out of 1000, followed by Jodhpur (927.19) and Durgapura (922.50). The other Rajasthan stations in the top 10 list are Gandhinagar-Jaipur (5th), Suratgarh (6th), Udaipur City (8th) and Ajmer (9th). With nine out the top 10 ‘A’ listers amongst suburban railway stations located in and around Mumbai, the Western Railway Station of Andheri was ranked number 1, followed by Virar and Naigaon. Six of nine stations on the Western Railway and three on the Central Railway bagged honours. Santragachi in Howrah, West Bengal, stood at number 5. The North Western Railway followed by South East Central Railway and East Central Railway are the top three railway zones. Unfortunately, Tamil Nadu has six of the dirtiest railway stations. The annual cleanliness survey conducted by the Quality Council of India (QCI) factored in both direction, observation and consumer feedback, along with process evaluation. The railways have been conducting third party audit and cleanliness since 2016, which has now seen 720 major stations from the earlier 407 stations that were ranked annually with the new inclusion of suburban stations too. In another study, the Visakhapatnam Railway Station received the ‘Good’ certification during a recent inspection made by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) along with four other railway stations-Jaipur, Mysuru, Vadodara and Bilaspur. However, Vizag Railway Station has slipped to 84th rank in this year’s ‘Swachh Rail, Swachh Bharat’ ranking as against its top position in the same list in 2017. With parameters such as green cover, liquid and solid waste management, energy management and ISO and green certificates as key indicators, step is definitely in the right path to the ‘Swachhata Mission’.

Corporate Citizen slaps the alarming trends reported by the government’s comprehensive national nutrition survey (cnns) – a first that gives detailed nutrition information of children between 5 and 14 years, also studies overnutrition and markers of ncds (non- communicable diseases) in children

While 10 % were underweight, about 4% of those surveyed were obese too! Statistics depict that one in every three children (35%), below five years, have stunted or low height for age, around 33% were underweight and that one in six children (17%) were wasted - showed low weight for height. However, the survey also indicates that the prevalence of undernutrition-related diseases during 2016-18, when this survey was conducted, was lower than it was during the National Family Health Survey of 2015-16, with counts of 38.3% of children as stunted, 35.8% as underweight, and 21% as wasted. “It’s good news for Poshan Abhiyan,” tweeted Alok Kumar, an advisor to the NITI Aayog, the Centre’s policy thinktank. This is in reference to the National Nutrition Mission that aims for a 25% fall in the prevalence of child stunting and a 3% point annual decline in the prevalence of anaemia among women and children under below five years by 2022. “We as a society are transitioning,” said Suparna Ghosh Jerath, additional professor of public health and nutrition at the Indian Institute of Public Health (IIPH), Delhi. He said that these findings are “alarming”. “This means a decrease in undernutrition, but a growing threat of noncommunicable diseases and problems of overnutrition “which we cannot ignore”, he said. “These figures should frighten people not just policymakers but also parents into acting for their children. There is an urgent need to improve diets at home, in schools, in public institutions,” said Purnima Menon, senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). “India is definitely following the trends of other countries, these levels are much higher in Brazil, Mexico and other countries,” she said.