Indian Railways has food unsuitable for human consumption: CAG Report

Indian Railways

Moneycontrol News 

The Indian Railways, known to ferry a total of 22.2 million passengers daily, has been blamed for serving ‘food unfit for human consumption’ in a recent report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) tabled today in the Parliament.

The report that was filed after a survey of 80 trains across 74 stations was done with the objective to find out policy and planning going behind the catering services of one of the largest railway networks in the world.

The report primarily reviewed hygiene, affordability, quality and availability of food to passengers of the Indian Railways.

Things pointed out included a lack of pantry cars in several long distance trains added with an increased incidence of unauthorised food being sold by hawkers on trains indicating that the pantry car food was not adequate.

The report also pointed out that “action taken by Railway Administration for the deviation from the quality standards was not effective”.

“Unpurified water straight from the tap was used in the preparation of beverages, waste bins were found uncovered, not emptied regularly and unwashed, food ingredients were not covered to protect them from flies, insects, dust, rats and cockroaches were also found in trains among other things” as per the report.

To add to the misery unfair practices such as not issuing bills for the food being served and lack of a uniform tariff card for all passengers was also observed.

The report in addition also said, “Articles unsuitable for human consumption, contaminated food stuff, recycled food stuff, expired packaged and bottled items, unauthorised brands of water bottles were offered for sale on stations.”

Recommendations to fix the issue included a complete makeover of the system in place and a transfer of the catering units to IRCTC. the report stressed low-cost janta meals at stations and a monitoring mechanism to ensure cleanliness.

In addition, the report also suggested the establishment of rates in the catering contract so that workers are well-paid enough and the quality of the food is not compromised.

The CAG said frequent policy changes have resulted in a lack of coordination in the Indian Railways in bridging the gap between providing necessary infrastructure in terms of base kitchens, static catering units, and train side vending arrangements.

The railways had formulated a new catering policy which was implemented from February this year but some parts of the report have not been complied with as per the report.

Read the summary of the report by CAG here. To check out all parts of the full report, click here.

Key Pointers of the Report –

#Audit was across 80 selected trains across 74 stations.

# Blue print plan for catering was not provided at several railway stations, across seven zonal railways

# In cases of seven zonal railways, meals were picked up from outside base kitchens where there was no subjection to quality checks of any kind. Ideally, a base kitchen is inside a railways station which ensures and monitors hygiene and food quality in trains

# Only 16 base kitchens were located in railway station premises. 115 base kitchens were located outside the railway premises and were not subjected to quality check. In respect of 128 trains of seven zonal railways, meals were picked up from outside base kitchens

# Gas burners which were supposed to be switched over to electric power equipment were not done across wide range of pantry cars