Title - The Hindu : States / Karnataka : Unappetising food irks Shatabdi passengers

The Shatabdi Express of Indian Railways is being promoted as a luxury train offering comfortable journey with onboard catering. However, the experience of passengers on the Chennai-Mysore-Chennai Shatabdi Express (Train Nos. 12007 and 12008) last week was otherwise as far as catering services were concerned. Despite repeated complaints, the Southern Railway, which manages the services of this train, has failed to improve the facility, complained regular travellers.

Preferring Shatabdi over his car for his journey to Mysore, Guruprasad Kasaravalli, a chartered accountant with Infosys, boarded Shatabdi Express (Train No. 12007) at Bangalore at 11 a.m. on Sunday and was shocked at the state of affairs. Travelling with his wife and one-year-old son, Mr. Guruprasad was hopeful of good catering facility befitting the standards of the train.

While the tomato soup was not too bad, Mr. Guruprasad said, “The lunch box had considerably shrunk in size and the food was not heated. Having paid the money, we had no choice but to accept whatever was served.” He learnt that other passengers in the compartment also were equally unhappy with the food that was served and were grumbling about it. However, the caterer was nowhere to be seen.

According to the menu card, curd rice and raitha were to be served for lunch, but they were not served according to Mr. Guruprasad. The complaint book had 18 similar complaints when Mr. Guruprasad opened it to register his complaint. When he spoke about the issue with the Railway officials at Mysore, he was told that catering on board Shatabdi had become worse after it was taken over by the Railway administration.

R. Manjunath, who travelled by the same train on September 7 also had complained about poor quality of food that was served on the train and the arrogant behaviour of the catering personnel. On September 21, S.V. Laxmi Kant also had complained about short supply of food items and arrogant behaviour of the staff.

Officials of the Southern Railway, who manage the catering, told The Hindu that the services of the contractor, CKK Catering Service, are being terminated. “We are aware that the quality of catering on board Shatabdi is poor. But due to procedural aspects, we are unable to immediately terminate the contractor’s service,” said N. Veeranarayana, Deputy Chief Commercial Manager (Passenger Service), Southern Railway, Chennai.

Mr. Veeranarayana said that termination was the last resort. The contractor was imposed fine for about 18 times; but there has not been any improvement in the services. “The contractor is providing service from the base kitchen set up in Bangalore and we need some time to get a new contractor,” he said, adding that the Southern Railway is also contemplating on blacklisting the contractor.