Intense Catering Drives conducted at Vijayawada Railway Station

35 Unauthorized Hawkers were apprehended and Rs 1.75 lakh penalty was realized during last 10 days

Officials of Commercial, Operating and EnHM Department launched intense catering drives across Vijayawada Railway station during last 10 days. The objective of this Catering check is to provide hygienic, good quality affordable food to the travelling public by adopting best trade and hospitality industry practices and to curtail unauthorized hawkers, unauthorized vending, excess charging and sale of unauthorized food products and non approved PAD (Proprietary Articles Items Display) at Station 

During last 10 days, the catering stalls, major & minor food units were intensely checked by the Officials of Commercial and EnHM Department. As a part of the Catering drive, the Quality of meals, snacks supplied at all the stalls and major units were checked and found satisfactory by the officials Quality tests were conducted regularly at Jan Aahaar, Major units and minor units by collecting Food samples as per FSS (Food Safety & Standards) Act, 2006. The samples are being analyzed at State Food laboratory. Not only catering Stalls, Railway approved Base kitchens supplying food were toughly checked for hygiene of cooking area, quality of ingredients, rice, oil used for preparation of food by the staff. During the drive 35 unauthorized hawkers selling tea were apprehended by the officials and a penalty of Rs. 1,75,0000 was realized. As a part of the drive, Officials also inspected the packaging materials used, hygiene conditions, Expiry date of articles, availability of vending permits, medical certificates of vendors at stalls. Several cases of Vendors found excess charging were also penalized during the drive.  

 The Inspectors & Staff of Commercial department,  inspected pantry cars of Express trains originating from and passing through Vijayawada Division. Officials inspected the working condition of smoke detectors, fire suppressing system, the validity of fireballs and fire extinguishers available in the pantry cars.  The hygiene, cooking standards, maintenance at vestibule area and passage of pantry cars were also inspected during the drive. Shri G. Somasekhar Naidu, Divisional Commercial Manager, Shri P.B.N Prasad, Station Director, Vijayawada Station, Shri P. Chandrasekhar, Food Safety Officer, Vijayawada, Inspectors of Commercial, EnHM wings took part in the Catering drives at Vijayawada Station

Shri Shivendra Mohan, Divisional Railway Manager, Vijayawada Division complimented the efforts of all the Officials and Staff, and advised them to conduct the Catering drives across the length & breadth of Division and pantry cars of the trains running across the Division. He said that Division is making every effort with utmost sincerity to provide Quality and tasty food to its esteemed passengers without any compromise. He also said such drives would be taken up continuously throughout the year to bring down the menace of excess charging, unauthorized hawking, vending and sale of stale and unhygienic foods across the Division.