For a railway passenger, there is often little time to make a choice. There is hardly any opportunity to check what is inside. The purchase is based almost entirely on trust.
The train stops for a few minutes, someone steps onto the platform, buys a bottle of water and perhaps a packet of food, and gets back on board before the whistle blows.
A sample of loose gram flour used in food preparation was also reported to have failed quality parameters. The sample was collected in July as part of routine testing. For passengers, these are not merely laboratory findings. They concern something as basic as the water they drink and the food they eat while travelling. For thousands of them, buying food and water on a platform is not optional. Long journeys, children and elderly passengers, summer heat and brief station halts mean travellers often have to depend on whatever is available at railway stalls. “Our train stopped at Bhopal and we bought food and water here. The water was not good and the food items were also not good. “The effort should be to provide passengers with good food and water and ensure cleanliness.
Checks should be conducted regularly so that vendors remain alert and stale food is not sold,” Pandey said. At the current price of Rs 14 for a one-litre bottle, that supply alone represents retail sales of about Rs 70,000 a day, or around Rs 2.55 crore over a year if the entire daily supply is sold.
It failed to conform to the prescribed standards, according to findings from the division. Karnail Singh, a passenger from Punjab whose train halted at Bhopal, said he bought food and water at the station but was unhappy with what he received. This is playing with the health of passengers,” he said. Another passenger, Dinesh Chandra Pandey, said the answer lay in constant monitoring rather than occasional checks.
