The taps can be seen missing on wash basins.
A few days after the Central Railway of the Mumbai Division shared that they had installed “state-of-the-art” facilities at the toilet facility at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, a user stated that they found taps and pipe fittings “stolen”.
The incident was brought to light by Mumbai Matters on X (formerly Twitter). In the pictures shared on social media, one can notice the taps missing on wash basins and water pipes missing from urinals.
Dear @drmmumbaicr@RailMinIndia Taps & pipe fittings at the “State of the Art Toilet” at CSMT being systematically stolen by the staff.@GM_CRly have a look at during one of your “Surprise” visits.
Remember Mumbai Madgaon Tejas express, staff was caught stealing the fittings https://t.co/ll1yZzmSRNpic.twitter.com/OUBAM5kKAO
— मुंबई Matters™ (@mumbaimatterz) February 6, 2024
“Dear @drmmumbaicr @RailMinIndia Taps & pipe fittings at the “State of the Art Toilet” at CSMT being systematically stolen by the staff. @GM_CRly have a look at during one of your “Surprise” visits. Remember Mumbai Madgaon Tejas express, staff was caught stealing the fittings,” the user said in the caption.
This caught the attention of Mumbai Division- Central Railway who responded to the post and said that the matter has been escalated to the concerned officials. “Inconvenience regretted, the matter escalated to the concerned official,” they added.
Last year, it was discovered that over two kilometres of abandoned railway tracks worth crores of rupees had been stolen and sold to scrap merchants in the Madhubani area of Bihar, reportedly with the help of Railway Protection Force (RPF) officials. Two personnel were suspended.
Meanwhile, in 2022, an entire diesel engine was stolen part by part from a railway yard in Bihar’s Begusarai district, police said. The Railways said that seven people had been arrested in connection with the theft of spare parts of an engine from a yard in Bihar and “95 per cent of the stolen items have been recovered”.
East Central Railway’s Chief Public Relations Officer Birendra Kumar issued a statement to the effect and clarified “no tunnel had been dug” by the “petty thieves” close to the yard in Barauni though he said they “might have sneaked through huge cracks in the decrepit boundary wall”.
The CPRO also insisted that the reported “stealth of an entire diesel engine” was “not humanly possible” and the thieves had decamped with “copper cable of a traction motor inside”.