Canteen at city railway station lying closed for months
Passengers at the Ludhiana railway station are a harried lot as the only refreshment room at the platform number one has been lying closed for the past many months as the railway authorities have failed to arrange a private contractor to run the food-joint.
Passengers at the Ludhiana railway station are a harried lot as the only refreshment room at the platform number one has been lying closed for the past many months as the railway authorities have failed to arrange a private contractor to run the food-joint.
Worst still, nobody knows when the refreshment room will be reopened. Railway officials at the railway station say the process to give the food joint on contract was tardy and can take months.
Officials say that railway authorities want to come out with new terms and conditions to run the refreshment room and tenders for the same will be floated in the near future. Till then, the passengers will have to make do with hunger pangs.
"Passengers have to spend long hours at the railway station and a proper food joint is the basic necessity. One has to leave the station in search of a proper food joint. Dhabas in the vicinity of the railway stations don't serve hygienic food and are costly," rues Mithun Chand, who was waiting for the Daddar Express at the station.
The senior divisional commercial manager MM Singh said that talks regarding reopening of the refreshment room with the railway board were in progress. "Without the permission of the board we can't even float tenders. We will try to speed-up the process but such things do take time," he said.