The incidents of passengers being served indigestible food in the Indian Railways are not new. In a recent incident, a passenger in the Shirdi-Mumbai Vande Bharat train suspected an insect in the Dal served by the railways. After inspecting it, the commuters realised that it was a dead cockroach.
The frustrated passenger's video of confronting the railway officials on the train has taken a storm on social media.
The passenger named Rikki Jeswani posted on his X handle tagging the IRCTC and highlighting the status of food served by Indian Railways. "We in Vande Bharat train now from Shirdi to Mumbai were eating dinner and found a dead cockroach in the dal...confirmed by the manager...given a written complaint 16103 dt 19.08.2014...is this new India," the disgruntled passenger posted.
Another passenger responded to the post saying, "I was travelling in the same train and I received stale curd. The sad part is I went from Mumbai to Shirdi this morning as well in Vande Bharat and I received stale curd in the morning too. The catering needs to be changed immediately," he added.
The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) officials took immediate notice of the complaints and asked them to share their PNR numbers for further action.
This is not the first time that an insect has been found in the food served by Indian Railways. In February this year, a dead cockroach was found by a passenger travelling from Kamlapati to Jabalpur junction. Last year a passenger in the Bhopal-Delhi Vande Bharat train had found a cockroach too after which the railways had fined the food vendor Rs 25,000.