Eat Railway food at your peril
India’s lifeline must improve its services or privatise
Aquestion often asked when the issue of the introduction of bullet trains comes up is whether they will be safe in Indian conditions. Now with the latest Comptroller and Auditor General’s report on catering services in the Indian Railways, we must ask a more basic question – is it safe to eat and drink the fare on offer? Clearly not. The CAG report says that the food articles being provided on the railways are unfit for human consumption. Some of it is contaminated or past its shelf life. The fault is in the compromises made on hygiene.
The Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) manages catering services, but does not cook or supply food that is served to passengers. This is done by private firms which are awarded the contacts after an open tender. The problem is that the same set of contractors has managed to get contracts for several decades. The railways minister has tried to strike at the contractor nexus by encouraging the e-catering business. But this initiative has not fully taken off yet.
Apart from the unsuitable food, the CAG report found that the water was not purified, waste bins not covered and food stuff left to the depredations of flies, dust, rats and cockroaches. The railways are notorious for their poor levels of hygiene when it comes to food. Coaches are rarely cleaned given the volume of traffic and the indifference of the officials. This means that the coaches themselves are unhygienic and dirty especially on long distance trains. At all times, the private contractors should be held accountable. Old habits die hard and the railways, much like the national air carrier, is treated as nothing more than a source of revenue. The tracks are aging, the coaches are often damaged and technology which can play a big part in rail safety has not been used as much as it should. From time to time, we hear of the need for an overhaul but there the matter ends. The railways are usually seen in terms of how much freight it can carry and how much revenue it generates. The least consideration is the passenger who keeps the organisation afloat. Parliament needs to take serious note of the CAG report and its alarming findings.