Central Railway shuts down eatery on account of not knowing of what's cooking

It is a stark reminder of the mess the railway catering is in. Central Railway authorities on Wednesday had to close down a restaurant operating inside CST, after the firm which was given the contract to manage it, wrote saying that some unauthorised people were running the show. Incidentally, this restaurant hit the headlines when terrorists Ajmal Qasab and Abu Ismail fired at it during their killing spree at on platforms 10-14.

The firm wrote to CR's commercial department saying that the restaurant was being run by unauthorised people and therefore, the original licensing firm should not be held responsible in case people fell ill after dining there.

Even by railway's low standards of checks and balances on the catering sector, the case is a stunner, agreed officials. The restaurant was given by railways to the IRCTC to operate, who in turn, licensed it to a firm called Goyal and Goyal which then sub-licensed it to a firm called Kishore and Company. It is from here, allege CR officials, that things got murky.

"We are in the dark about how the people currently running the show got into the picture. They say that they got the license from the original licensee, but the latter deny it. This is going to badly hurt the reputation of the railways' catering department," said a CR official.

With a court case currently on, CR and IRCTC officials didn't want to come on record over the issue. "It just shows that there is so much corruption in certain departments, that one can run a full-scale restaurant at CST, and get away with it," said an official.

Already ongoing, is a CBI probe into a multi-crore scam at CST where several stalls were running for years after their licenses expired. A parcel clerk from CR, Ajay Bose had filed the case with the CBI.