Railways overlooked food quality, using gas stoves in pantry: Parl panel

The Committee on Public Accounts has pulled up railways for overlooking several of its recommendations pertaining to issues ranging from food hygiene, cooking safety, to establishing new base kitchens. 

In its 115th report (17th Lok Sabha) on "Catering Service in Indian Railways," the committee said it did not accept the Railway Ministry's reply on five of its 11 recommendations and demanded proper action. 

Presented to the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, the committee, headed by KC Venugopal, in its report found that the railways changed its catering policy three times since 2005 – first assigning it to the IRCTC, then to zonal railways in 2010, and finally returning to the IRCTC in February 2017. 

In one of its recommendations, the committee demanded an answer from the railways on 15 kitchen units which were chosen to be upgraded and nine green field base kitchens supposed to be set up by IRCTC. 

The railway has set up a number of kitchens on the station premises to cook food and supply it to passengers in coaches. The move was envisioned in the wake of banning of LPG-based pantry cars which led to many fire incidents in the past. 

The committee also chastised railways for failing to progressively switch over from gas burners to electric power equipment in pantry cars. 

It said it found that the policy was not being followed at Integral Coach Factory, Perambur, which, it said, continued to crank out older style pantries till at least 2016. 

"The Committee are further unable to comprehend the reasons as to why 103 pantry cars were manufactured by Integral Coach Factory, during April 2011 to March 2016 with provision for centralised-LPG cylinders with open flame instead of providing electric power equipment panel counters despite the provision in Catering Policy 2010 for progressive switch over from gas burners to electric power equipment in pantry cars," the report said. 

The committee also recommended the ministry, IRCTC and zonal railways to undertake a joint review of operations every five years, as it accused the ministry of being "evasive" in its reply on the review blueprint. 

The report also sought railways' response on the number of ICF coaches currently in operation and its plans to formulate a cost-effective plan to expeditiously replace them with LHB – Linke-Hofmann-Busch – coaches. 

The committee said it was "dismayed" to see ministry failing to address issues of food quality, hygiene and cleanliness.

"The Committee are also unhappy to note that the Ministry has not furnished details of setting up of base kitchens inside the railway premises," it said and demanded an action taken report. 

The committee sought from railways"surprise inspections" of train catering services for food safety. "The Committee are astonished to note that Railways are yet to adopt any standard operating procedures or performance indicators to upload reports based on surprise inspections of the catering services on the online portal," it said.