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Amid scorching heat, commuters struggle to get cold water at Ludhiana railway station
The Ludhiana railway station has water booths on platforms 2/3 and 4/5 which provide cold water for ₹5 per litre for a refill and ₹8 for a one-litre bottle
As the city continues to reel under a heatwave for over 10 days, the passengers at the Ludhiana railway station are struggling to get cold drinking water.
The station has water booths on platforms 2/3 and 4/5 which provide cold water for ₹5 per litre for a refill and ₹8 for a one-litre bottle. However, commuters claim that they are not enough to cater to the rush.
The refrigerator in these booths has a capacity of 50 litre and according to a vendor working on one of them, it takes at least a couple of hours for the water to get cold. “However, the passenger load is so much that we don’t get enough time to refrigerate water properly,” he said.
“If other booths were open, we might get the time to get the water cold,” he added.
There are a few water coolers on the platforms as well, but many of them are not functional. And for the ones that do, commuters said that the rush is such that the water does not get enough time to be chilled.
Commuters say that in the current situation, they have no option but to buy packaged drinking water.
“It’s 44 degrees Celsius. I have been sitting here for a couple of hours with my family of six. We have bought six bottles till now. At this rate, by the time my train is here, I would have spent over ₹200 on water,” said Sandeep Singh, who was waiting for a train to get to Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh.
Station director Divakar Varshney could not be reached for a comment.
