Travellers will have to pay more for the packaged drinking water supplied by the Railways in trains and platforms. The Railways ministry has given the clearance to a proposal to increase the rate of packaged drinking water- Rail Neer- from Rs 12 to Rs 15 per one litre bottle. The price of the 500 ml bottle will be increased from Rs 8 to Rs 10, as per the decision.
" The IRCTC, which manufactures and supplies the packaged drinking water at railway premises, had sought the ministry's approval for revising the rate of Rail Neer and we have given the approval for the same," said a senior Railways ministry official.
Now, it is upto the IRCTC to finalise a date for implementation of the new rate, the official said. IRCTC, a subsidiary under the Railway ministry, is currently manufacturing Rail Neer at three locations - Nangloi (Delhi), Danapur (Bihar) and Palur (near Chennai) with a cumulative production capacity of 3.80 lakh bottles (1 litre capacity) per day.
According to IRCTC, the demand for Rail Neer at railway stations has increased steadily and there is a huge gap between the existing production capacity of the plants and the demand. In order to cater to the growing demand for hygienic drinking water in trains and platforms, IRCTC has decided to augment the manufacture and supply of Rail Neer and plans are afoot to set up more manufacturing plants.
"While one plant each is coming up in Mumbai and Delhi, two plants each are being planned in Hyderabad and Nagpur," said a senior IRCTC official.
