Railway stations in India aren’t exactly the cleanest places in the country, despite the Swachh Bharat efforts.
Now, a video reportedly from the Visakhapatnam railway station has gone viral after railway canteen vendors were caught on camera repacking food spilt on the platform into containers.
The one-minute video shows three railway vendors sitting on the platform, with several crates of food packets around them. As railway announcements play out, the men don’t cry over the food that they have accidently spilt on the platform ground. Instead, they just scoop up the spilt food and repack it into the containers.
But that’s not all, the railway staff are also caught without plastic gloves, as they handle food meant to be sold and distributed to passengers later.
The video that has been widely shared on social media platforms has left many horrified.
While railway officials told Deccan Chronicle that the licensee of the food stall had been warned, they also claimed that the video clip was old. B Ramamohana Rao of Waltair Railway Division also told DC that a penalty of Rs 8000 had been imposed on the licensee and they had directed them to replace the staff involved in the incident.
The video has surfaced just weeks after the Comptroller Auditor of General (CAG) slammed the Indian railways for selling food that was “unsuitable for human consumption”.
The scathing report observed, “Unpurified water straight from tap was used in preparation of beverages, waste bins were not found covered, not emptied regularly and not washed, food stuff were not covered to protect them from flies, insects and dust, rats and cockroaches were found in trains etc."