'I spend 18 hours on toilet', says Jairam

June 9, 2012

New Delhi, June 9: Amid the controversy over Rs 35 lakh expenditure on Planning Commission's toilets, Union Minister Jairam Ramesh today quipped that he himself spends '18 hours of a day on toilets alone'.

"I believe the biggest issues in front of us are malnutrition and toilets, these are the two faces of one coin... I have MNREGA, PMGSY, drinking water etc under me but I spend maximum time on toilet only," said Ramesh, who holds the portfolios of Rural Development and Drinking Water and Sanitation, in what apparently was his take on the toilet controversy for which the plan panel has drawn flak.

"Believe me that out of the 24 hours, I spent 18 hours on toilet (issue) itself," he said at a function here to release a book on manual scavenging written by journalist Bhasha Singh.

He insisted that the government was "not at all insensitive" and it is committed and duty bound to work on the issue.

He lamented that even after six decades after independence, around 7.5 lakh families are involved in manual scavenging as per the 2011 census.

"After the figures we get from various states, I was under the impression that manual scavenging in the states have been abolished.

"But when I went through the detailed report of Census, the figures are surprising and astonishing. Even today many people don't realise and don't believe that this Census is correct," he said.

The book in Hindi titled "Adrishya Bharat" is on manual scavenging.

He said Railways is "another big headache for us."

The issue of manual scavenging is related with daily railway traffic and "we have to tackle this also.

Though my responsibility is for rural area, we have to take care of urban areas as well. Facilities like Sulabh should be available in large numbers."

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Chaos continues as IndiGo cancels more flights including 73 from Bengaluru airport

News Network

December 4,2025

Domestic carrier IndiGo has cancelled over 180 flights from three major airports — Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru — on Thursday, December 4, as the airline struggles to secure the required crew to operate its flights in the wake of new flight-duty and rest-period norms for pilots.

While the number of cancellations at Mumbai airport stands at 86 (41 arrivals and 45 departures) for the day, at Bengaluru, 73 flights have been cancelled, including 41 arrivals, according to a PTI report that quoted sources.

"IndiGo cancelled over 180 flights on Thursday at three airports-Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru," the source told the news agency.

Besides, it had cancelled as many as 33 flights at Delhi airport for Thursday, the source said, adding, "The number of cancellations is expected to be higher by the end of the day."

The Gurugram-based airline's On-Time Performance (OTP) nosedived to 19.7 per cent at six key airports — Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Hyderabad — on December 3, as it struggled to get the required crew to operate its services, down from almost half of December 2, when it was 35 per cent.

"IndiGo has been facing acute crew shortage since the implementation of the second phase of the FDTL (Flight Duty Time Limitations) norms, leading to cancellations and huge delays in its operations across the airports," a source had told PTI on Wednesday.

Chaos continued at several major airports for the third day on Thursday because of the cancellations.

A spokesperson for the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) in Bengaluru said that 73 IndiGo flights had been cancelled on Thursday.

At least 150 flights were cancelled and dozens of others delayed on Wednesday, airport sources said, leaving thousands of travellers stranded, according to news agency Reuters.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has said it is investigating IndiGo flight disruptions and has asked the airline to submit the reasons for the current situation, as well as its plans to reduce flight cancellations and delays.

It may be mentioned here that the pilots' body, Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP), has alleged that IndiGo, despite getting a two-year preparatory window before the full implementation of new flight duty and rest period norms for cockpit crew, "inexplicably" adopted a "hiring freeze".

The FIP said it has urged the safety regulator, the DGCA, not to approve airlines' seasonal flight schedules unless they have adequate staff to operate their services "safely and reliably" in accordance with the New Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) norms.

In a letter to the DGCA late on Wednesday, the FIP urged the DGCA to consider re-evaluating and reallocating slots to other airlines, which have the capacity to operate them without disruption during the peak holiday and fog season if IndiGo continues to "fail in delivering on its commitments to passengers due to its own avoidable staffing shortages."

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