KOLKATA: Prodded by a slew of complaints on social media over the sorry state of toilets inside the Kolkata airport, the authorities have installed emoji feedback machines outside the toilets, asking commuters to rate their experience after every use.The machines placed near the doors of 10 out of the 27 washrooms ask passengers to rate the cleanliness and have five separate buttons — excellent, very good, average, poor and bad — to rate their responses. SMSes are sent from the machines to designated personnel, like the airport manager and other AAI officials, for taking immediate corrective action on receipt of a negative rating.“The move aims to getting accurate feedback from the passengers immediately after they use the services at the airport. Based on the feedback, we take adequate measures to keep the toilets clean ,” said airport director Atul Dixit. Another official added that if the use of the machines is succesful, additional machines will be installed to cover all toilets and other passenger areas like departure immigration, check-in zones, security check, food court and shopping areas.Over the past few months, several passengers had been tagging the Kolkata airport authorities, civil aviation ministry and the Airport Authorities of India pointing out the poor state of toilets in the city’s airport terminal. While some posted photographs of soiled floors and stained sanitary wares, many complained about non-functional taps and missing toilet paper.Sandip Ghose had posted: “@KolkataAirport has probably the worst hygiene facilities among metros. Too few toilets, poor maintenance, pathetic cleanliness. No restrooms on the arrival walkways and only 3/4 in the baggage area. Inadequate size. Faulty planning. Poor upkeep @aaikolairport #Kolkata #Airport”. Another user Kalyan Karmakar had tweeted: “Kolkata airport needs to work on its toilets. Doesn’t match up with the rest of the facade by miles”.Another passenger, who wanted to lodge an official complaint but couldn’t as he was running out of time to catch a flight, said: “I used a washroom in the departure area and the automatic sensor at the washbasin was not working and the water was continually flowing. The tap, too, was faulty. To make things worse, there was not a single toilet paper and there was no one around to complaint.”Dwaipayan Roy was flying to Mumbai to catch a connecting flight to Tanzania earlier this month.While the airport director claimed they do keep the toilets clean and have men deputed to keep a check on the cleanliness, some officials said time had come to change some of the sanitary wares and bathroom fittings that are past their shelf life due to excessive usage.“We have asked for regular checks and surprise inspection by our staff to monitor toilet maintenance. We also undertake necessary renovation works as and when required and the new feedback machines will certainly help us with better services to our users,” said a senior official at the airport.

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