A ban that derailed lives

KOCHI: The ban on the vendors has put the livelihood of many in disarray.    Vendors with IRCTC licencses are now out of business. In the Ernakulam South Railway Station under the IRCTC alone there are eight stalls which employ more than 60 vendors.Many of these vendors under the IRCTC have been former members of the railway department with government approved identity cards.   When the catering was taken over by the IRCTC, they were shifted to the IRCTC. After the announcement, on last Thursday these men now find themselves out of business.One such vendor is K R Joshi, who is out of work after 30 years in the business. “We come here everyday to check and see if there is any development. But it’s been more than a week and things are the same. The Union here is very weak. Many  vendors are migrants so we are unable to  communicate with them. We have no strength, though in Palakkad there is a hunger strike going on about the issue,” he says.While the railways initiated the ban to do away with unauthorised vendors, Joshi feels cheated that IRCTC-approved employees were treated no differently from the other vendors.“In any case there are not really that many unauthorised vendors in the South station. And  the ones in the North station were removed after the Soumya murder case. But many of these were given licences later by certain political bigwigs,” he says.Hotel owners also vouch for the dilution that occurred under the IRCTC.  “When the catering was directly under the railways, all this was very strictly monitored. The vendors couldn’t easily make appointments or cancel them. But now it is easier to get these licences. They  are now signed and issued by the hotels and the stalls. So there is misuse,” says an IRCTC approved hotel manager from Ernakulam South Railway station.