Summer whine: Rail Neer goes off the racks at stations

: Commuters travelling on the city’s suburban network must now carry a bottle of water every day, as the affordable Rail Neer supply will remain dry until March 8

: Commuters travelling on the city’s suburban network must now carry a bottle of water every day, as the affordable Rail Neer supply will remain dry until March 8.

Summer whine: Rail Neer goes off the racks at stations

The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) communicated about the paucity of supply to the Central Railway (CR) and Western Railway (WR) on February 20. The supply will be curtailed at static units (food stalls on platforms) in this period, as the Rail Neer plant in Ambernath is due for the mandatory annual maintenance.

This comes at a time when the water vending machines (WVMs) at railway stations either do not exist or are lying defunct while temperatures are soaring through the day. In the months of March and October last year, Rail Neer supply was affected, following which the railways had complained about the shortage.

The Ambernath plant has a capacity to produce 14,500 batches, with 12 bottles of one litre each per batch. As summer has already set in, the railways are already getting a demand of 12,000 batches every day, which is only likely to rise. Officials at IRCTC claim they are “simply asking the railways to make alternate arrangements from other sources”.

“Maintenance activity (between five to six days) cannot be taken up later than March to avoid breakdown in peak summers. When maintenance is on, there will be no production,” said an official from IRCTC. The body also put forth that often static units wait till they hit the last reserves before requisitioning for additional stock, “which often makes it difficult to offer timely supply”.

Rail Neer is an important passenger facility, available at ₹15 per litre. It has a monopoly at all railway stations, making this the only option for suburban train commuters. In premium passenger trains and certain air-conditioned coaches bottles from this brand are supplied by the railways, included in the cost of tickets.

Harish Pande, a commuter from Dahisar, said, “The railways should allow more than one brand of bottled water at all stations. The monopoly of Rail Neer is at the root of such problems.”