So after all the debate, the Indian Railways has surrendered. It has come up with a temporary solution to the recurring problem of poor quality food being served in trains by asking the passengers to bring eatables from their homes.
Through this advice, the railways has conceded to the fact that the problem of providing good quality food in trains is something it has found too tough a challenge. The recent cases of discovery of a dead lizard in a vegetarian meal served on board the Poorva Express and the Comptroller and Auditor General's report that food served on trains and sold on railway platforms are "unfit for human consumption" have provided enough ammunition to rattle the mammoth organisation called the Indian Railways so much so that the chairman of the railway board, AK Mittal, has eventually given the prescription to carry home-cooked food during journeys.
Serving food to 15 lakh commuters on an eaverage daily has become quite an issue.
The concession sounds sympathetic but it also shows how inefficient the railways actually is in accomplishing real tasks of overhaul. During the reign of Suresh Prabhu, the authorities tried to make it look that the railways are trying to do things differently through innovation and smart thinking. But by asking the passengers to care for their appetite themselves, the railways has given a body blow to the entire idea of turning around. And imagine, we are going back to the stone age in railway catering when Prime Minister Narendra Modi is dreaming about running bullet trains on the Indian soil.
So do we need to carry home refrigerator to preserve the home-made food?
In India, railway journeys can be really long, extending over days. The insensitive bureaucratic thinking of the railway officials becomes exposed when they give easy but impractical solution to people, mainly to put the burden on themselves instead of trying to ease it. If I am travelling from Jammu to Kanyakumari, for instance, how many buckets of food do I have to carry with myself? And if I have an extended family travelling with me as well? May be, I will also need to book a berth for my refrigerator which I will definitely need to preserve the home-made food. And may be a portable generator to keep it running? And also an electrician to look after the generator? The crazy list will only get longer and we are sure not many in the railways are giving infrastructure a thought.
The railways ministry has said that it will adopt a fresh new catering policy but it will take some time. Till then, we need to catch a truck to catch a train.
Such callous acknowledgement of a debacle and defeat by the Indian Railways will only facilitate its dwindling fate. If people have to bear more inconvenience by deciding to undertake a train journey, say for instance, during the vacation, the direct beneficiary will be the airliners who are anyway widening the gap over the railways because of various reasons.
The railways are our heritage, a sense of national bonding and a big pride. By reducing its stature into a joke, the officials have not just done their reputation a world of bad but also made a decisive step towards digging up their graves.
