The proposal of massage facility inside trains has irked a Bharatiya Janata Party MP who did not find the facility in accordance with the Indian culture and thinks there are much better things to be added in the passenger amenities list than a body massage in running trains.

BJP’s newly elected MP from Indore Shankar Lalwani had penned to Railways Minister Piyush Goyal and has registered his protest against proposed massage facilities in running trains.

Calling it a ‘standard less’ proposal, Lalwani on June 10 has wrote a letter to Goyal saying it won’t be a decent move to offer massage to train passengers in the presence of fellow women passengers.

Talking to media persons, Lalwani said during summer, the trains remain jam packed so how massage could be offered to the travellers especially on berths where three passengers sit together. “I am surprised whether this proposed massage facility in front of fellow passengers especially women would be decent in accordance with the Indian culture,” said Lalwani.

The Indore MP candidly wrote in the letter that there is no sense of such standard less facility in trains suggesting that instead other amenities including medical facilities, physicians and others could be made available to the travellers. 

The BJP MP advised Railways to first make available amenities like sitting arrangements for travellers, feeding rooms for women and doctors on board trains. “Massage could be a good facility for tourist trains but not passenger trains where there is hardly space to sit,” said the MP.