The newly-opened food plaza at Chandigarh railway station, a venture of the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation, is fleecing customers by selling a cup of tea for Rs 20 and a humble parantha for Rs 75.
The contract for maintaining the food plaza has been given to Vrindavan Food Products by IRCTC. The outlet was meant for providing quality food at reasonable rates. However, the prices of food items mentioned on the menu of the outlet shock customers. Sanjeev Chauhan, manager of the food plaza, expressed helplessness in handling the matter. He admitted that prices are high but shunned his responsibility by saying that it was decided by his bosses in Delhi.
The new outlet, which started functioning three months back, serves a cup of coffee for Rs 30, cappuccino at Rs 40, soft drink from fizz machines at Rs 40. A potato patty, which is available for Rs 10 to Rs 15 in the open market, is sold for Rs 30 here, which clearly indicates the exuberant pricing of the outlet.
The story doesn’t end here. The rates mentioned above are exclusive of tax and a customer seeking food will have to shell out VAT and 4.9 per cent service tax in addition to the price mentioned in the menu, making it costlier by around 20 per cent more. Even a plate of puri sabzi, which is a supposed to be a light snack, is priced to kill one’s appetite. Due to the high pricing of eatables at this outlet, it has attracted the scorn of the passengers who prefer to eat at other places near the station where the same food items are available at a reasonable price. Passengers who travel AC also prefer to steer clear.
“We get around 100 passengers daily. This has been the trend for the past three months, as a result of which the outlet is running into losses,” rued Chauhan. listing the losses incurred by the food plaza, Chauhan said that around Rs 25,000 to Rs 30,000 goes out as electricity bills per month and on top of it, Rs 2 lakh is distributed as salaries to all the 25 employees working here. When contacted, the Railway authorities in Chandigarh preferred not to comment but were in agreement that the pricing at the food plaza was brought before them. Chauhan, however, added that the food plaza of Chandigarh is the only outlet maintained by his company, which is incurring losses.