BENGALURU: The On-board Housekeeping Services (OBHS) staff, on contract with the Bangalore Railway Division on board the Jodhpur-Bengaluru Express (No. 16507), heading from Jodhpur to Bengaluru, were made to apologise to passengers on Sunday for their “rude behaviour”.
The action was taken after a passenger tweeted to Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu, complaining about their behaviour.
Raj Kumar, who was onboard the train, tweeted to the Minister around 12 noon on Sunday about the staff being rude with passengers while asking them to fill up a feedback form relating to passenger services.
His tweets also alleged that the staff were merely collecting phone numbers and signatures of even illiterate passengers on the forms so that they could fill up the rest themselves. Suresh Prabhu then asked Bengaluru Railway Division officials and the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation officials to take action.
The staff were contacted by railway officials and made to apologise to the passengers around 4pm. The passenger tweeted about it and thanked the Railway Minister and top railway officials later.
When asked about the incident, Divisional Railway Manager, Bangalore Division, Sanjiv Agarwal said that if the contracted employees were found guilty of any misbehaviour, they would be terminated. “Let the train reach Bengaluru tomorrow and we will get the full details. The rules are very clear when it comes to contract employees,” he said.
Agarwal also said that even if forms are filled up by the staff, it would get exposed. “We just do not collect the feedback forms. Calls are made to phone numbers on the forms on a random basis to get the views of passengers orally also. The matter would have come to light,” he said.
Meanwhile, many tweets by Raj Kumar on the subject had been deleted by night. He was hesitant to speak to Express as he was worried the staff in question may lose their jobs.