Two Railway employees’ canteen within one campus and two different model in name of Staff Benefit Fund (SBF) is a classic case of study. At one place, Railways has gone for earning money and in the other case, the Railways is keen to spend money in the name of welfare. The Nagpur Division of Central Railway and South East Central Railway (SECR) have adopted different modalities for running their respective staff canteens, putting employees at cross roads. While Central Railway has opted for leveraging the benefit of employees’ strength to tap the Non Fare Revenue (NFR) route to earn money, South East Central Railway (SECR) is still keen to continue with old subsidy model that would however see outflow of money from Railway account.

 

The SECR move has irked the employees who are questioning the rationale of subsidy, since Railways is going to pay nearly Rs 50 lakh to run the staff canteen at its own premises. Given the low footfall due to retirement and low intake, Central Railway’s Nagpur Division officials decided to discontinue subsidy model. Instead, they chose the outsourcing mode and have invited bids from reputed catering parties in city to participate and run the staff canteen. They have kept the expected price at Rs 8.5 lakh and stated it is open for bidding. In SECR however, the Personnel Department is keen to continue with existing arrangement for two more years. They too are in process of hiring a catering agency to run the staff canteen adjoining DRM office.

 

They have kept the price at just a whisker short of Rs 50 lakh as form of subsidy to provide food and breakfast items at below market rates to employees. The employees at SECR are however miffed, questioning the rationale of utilising Staff Benefit Fund (SBF) and referred to neighbouring Central Railway model which they say is more prudent. Further at SECR, the employees say, many a time, those visiting from outside the division headquarters often end up paying more for the subsidised food as the canteen contractor tries to maximise profit. Moreover, the quality of food is not one that can be gloated over and any complaint about it is met with a standard reply as the contractor says he cannot provide beyond this and money from the contract is not that attractive.

 

The fact that employees do not wish for this to come to record means that there is much more to subsidy game than staff benefit. When contacted, Sr DPO Swetha Chhoriya declined to comment on the issue citing protocol. The officers of Commercial Branch said they are studying the Central Railway model and in future might contemplate same outsourcing route. But since the canteen is handled by society, the matter is handled by Personnel Branch.

 

 

 Central Railway is banking heavily on outsourcing mode to make its Staff Canteen as a successful model so that same can be replicated elsewhere in division. DRM Vinayak Garg personally invited owners of top restaurant chains in city to discuss possibility of tie up and urged them to participate in the bidding for taking over running of Staff Canteen. As to prices, the officials of Commercial Branch stated that post outsourcing, the price would remained capped for 15 items. Beyond that for extra items also, the rates would be kept below the market price.