Railways contractor fined Rs 1 lakh after video shows vendor coming out of toilet with tea, coffee cans

A vendor who can be seen coming out of a train toilet with tea, coffee cans insinuating that toilet water was used to prepare the beverages has been removed from his job and the contractor who hired him fined Rs 1 lakh by the Railways. In the video that has gone viral, one can see two men - one standing outside the toilet and one inside - are taking out these cans, while a third man standing on the platform taking one of these cans. 

The incident took place last December onboard the Chennai Central-Hyderabad Charminar Express at Secunderabad railway station in Hyderabad.

The Commercial Department of the South Central Railway (SCR) called it 'wrong practice' as mentioned in a report in ANI. "However, the very fact that the Tea/Coffee cans were seen brought out of the toilet, is in itself a wrong practice. Therefore, IRCTC is advised to levy a penalty of Rs. 1,00,000/- against the Train Side Vending Licensee, Shri P. Sivaprasad, as this contract is now with IRCTC," the department mentioned in a statement.

P Sivaprasad is the contractor who had hired the vendors. During the inquiry, he said that no toilet water was mixed and the vendors were simply transferring the leftover beverages, as mentioned in the agency report.

In a release, SCR Chief Public Relations Officer M Umashankar Kumar said, "An inquiry was conducted, and on the basis of it stringent action has been taken up against the Train Side Vending contractor for the section between Secunderabad and Kazipet, P Sivaprasad, with whom the identified vendor in the video was employed."

Kumar also added that two of the people seen in the video were unauthorised hawkers.

He further added that Commercial Department of the SCR has been conducting drives against unauthorised hawking at Secunderabad in the past couple of months. Such hawkers, including the two in the video have been removed.

Kumar assured that strict vigil was kept at various levels to ensure that such incidents do not occur in the future.

(With agency inputs)