Rly food stalls seek force majeure extension citing rioting, unviable biz

Passengers raiding stalls for food and water at railway stations and low turnout of trains are some of the issues being faced by owners of over 100,000 stalls across the country. They have approached the ministry of Railways for an extension of force majeure invoked on their licence fees till starting of normal services.

Passengers of Shramik Specials had raided and looted stalls in various stations across the country including Kanpur, Jabalpur, Deen Dayal Upadhyay, Jhansi and New Delhi besides some stations in the South. 

The Railways had asked owners to open the stalls in a notification dated May 21. However, many employees of these stalls were on leave and fewer trains make business unviable, too.

As many as 3,840 trains carrying 5.2 million people have been operated during May 1-28. Non-operation of these stalls would create further problem since a new category of special trains will start from Monday.

“Medically fit vendors have migrated to their home states. Getting medical fitness certificates for staff takes 15 days. At this stage, it is not feasible to hire new employees. In addition, only few trains are being operated, mostly one or two trains a day in majority of stations, leading to no sale at our stalls,” said Ravinder Gupta, president, Akhil Bhartiya Railway Khan-Pan Licensees Welfare Association.

Gupta wants a waiver on licence fee, till trains start normal run, which is unlikely till June 30.  According to the association, there are over 100,000 stalls across the country, employing over 600,000 people. The association has already written to the Railways seeking a relief in this regard.

“The Railways or the states are unable to provide food on time to migrants travelling on Shramik trains. That is why they are putting the burden on us,” said a South-India based stall owner, who has over three dozen stalls across various states.

According to him, people are looting stalls it was because of less availability of food. The national transporter operated around 3,274 Shramik Specials till May 25, carrying over 4.4 million passengers. It was only after May 21 that some stalls were opened.

“We are seeking the force majeure to be invoked on licence fee. We can pay it only after normal operations are started. Nowadays, there is hardly any train and it will be unviable for us to open the stall 24x7,” said A Ramesh of JS Enterprises, which runs over 125 catering stalls across the country.

According to the media reports, several people lost their lives on Shramik Trains allegedly due to failure from the part of railways in supplying food and water on time. One such report in Hindustan Times on Saturday put the number collated by Railway Protection Force at 80.

The Indian Railways authorities had earlier called reports as “misinformation” and “fake” news. On Wednesday, a railways official said, “Few deaths have been reported in Shramik special trains. In most of these cases, it is discovered that those who died are old sick people and chronic disease patients, who had actually gone to big cities for medical treatment and could come back only after Railways started these Shramik Special trains.”

Following the deaths, the Railways on Friday said persons with co-morbidities (hypertension, diabetes, cardio-vascular diseases, cancer, immune deficiency conditions), pregnant women, children below the age of 10 years and persons above 65 years of age to avoid travel by rail, except when it is essential.