CHENNAI: It’s less than a month since the Tejas Express , the premium train between Chennai and Madurai , started running, but already passengers are complaining of clogged toilets, cracked windows and TV sets that don’t work.The train runs full on weekends and is more than half full on weekdays. And the summer holidays set to begin, it is likely to run full even on weekdays. The train starts from Chennai at 6am, reaches Madurai at 12:30pm and returns to Chennai from Madurai at 9:30pm. It has only two stops, Trichy and Kodai road.Railways had great hopes that the passengers, who pay a premium to travel on the Tejas Express, would not complain about the toilets as they do about those on other trains. This train has bio-vacuum toilets meant to rival those on flights.However, within the first few days, complaints started pouring in that the toilets was extremely smelly. “The odour is present even in the centre of the coach. The toilet is not flushing properly.”These were some of the complaints posed by passengers tagging the twitter handles of railway officials. Some shared photos of faecal matter floating in water. This is when the train is not even running full.G Jayakumar who travelled on March 8 said the comfort in the train was good but the toilets were not flushing.Another passenger Peter who travelled two days later complained that the toilets were unclean and requested that they be cleaned enroute.Sources in Southern Railway said the exit nozzle of the toilet was smaller than on regular trains. “So even if the passenger dumps a bottle or any cup, it gets stuck in the nozzle and this clogs up the bio-toilet system. We are already working on the issue,” an official said.A senior railway official said there were issues with the bio-toilets installation as well and that the contractor was likely to be pulled up. Two coaches had already been sent to Integral Coach Factory (ICF) for replacement of bio-toilets, the official added.Many of the windows are cracked as miscreants pelt stones at the train. At least 10 instances of stone pelting has been recorded and many of the cracked windows have not been repaired. “The glass is expensive, each pane costs around Rs 10,000-Rs 15,000,” said an official.There’s another problem with the windows. The blinds that cover them are operated mechanically, unlike on the Shatabdi, where you have to manually move them. On the Tejas, passengers have to push a button to move the blinds, but they complain that the mechanism malfunctions often.The infotainment system was supposed to be one of the USPs of the Tejas Express, but passengers complain that 15%-20% of the TV screens are defective.

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