KOLKATA: A 3ft false ceiling chunk made of light-weight gypsum board and an accompanying aluminium cladding beside the entrance to a toilet in the departure terminal of the Kolkata airport came crashing down at 10am on Tuesday, leaving an airline crew startled and another passenger thanking his lucky stars that it did not fall on him and cause an injury.
Sources said the terminal false ceiling that is now eight-year old needs to be thoroughly checked and emergency repairs and replacement carried out to prevent a mishap.
“As a facility like an airport terminal ages, maintenance will go up. Sections will have to be inspected more frequently and corrective measures taken to ensure both safety and aesthetics. An airport is the first point of contact for anyone who comes to the city and if he or she sees it in a poor condition, it leaves a bad impression,” said a corporate executive who frequently uses the airport and has been noticing the problem area,s including poor maintenance of toilets.
Airport authorities said incidents like that happen at times inside the terminal because of possible movement of rodents. However, no such rodent could be spotted on Tuesday.
“A very small piece of lightweight material used in false ceiling had fell off near a washroom. But thankfully it didn’t fall on anyone. It was also too light weight to even cause an injury to anyone. But after the incident, we have alerted the agency concerned to run a check on all the ceiling panels and ensure such an incident does not happen again,” said C Pattabhi, the airport director.
Cleanliness and maintenance of the toilets and the area surrounding it has come under question on several occasions by flyers who have often raised the issue on social media platforms as well.
Aftab A Khan, a Twitter user, wrote on September 19 tagging Airports Authority of India: “Chennai and Kolkata airport toilets are in worse condition. If you can renovate the airport, then do not forget even the rest room is part of the property.”
Airport authorities blamed a section of passengers — many of them first-time flyers from economically backward section of the society who wash their feet and drop water in the washroom very often. Flooded by the complaints, airport authorities had deputed dedicated housekeeping personnel at every washroom in the terminal who would periodically wash the floors and clean the washrooms after short intervals and whose presence also deterred a section of flyers to soil the washrooms. But the frequency of cleaning has diminished, claimed frequent flyers.
