Missing kheer-doi pot keeps railway officials on toes

Kolkata: How far can one go to trace a misplaced pot of kheer-doi (mishti doi)? A true connoisseur of sweets would go the whole hog or so it seems, even if it means alerting the central twitter handle of the railways that deals with passenger services.

Thanks to the complainant, Railway Protection Force (RPF) personnel scoured the compartments of the Gour Express to track the pot even as the train was being maintained at Sealdah on Sunday morning.

The twitter handle of Indian Railways Seva received the first ‘alarm call’ at 8.55am.

“My friend forgot to take a pack of 2kg kheer doi (sweet curd) under berth no 15, coach number B1, train number 23154 Gour Express. Station …. Sealdah. Date 13.10.19. Morning 6 am.”

This triggered action with Eastern Railway’s RPF being alerted by the central authority.

“Complaint No. ER-1065. Kindly look into the matter and submit Action Taken Report,” the RPF bosses tweeted to the handle of those in charge of security at Sealdah.

“Sir, your complaint has been received. The train has already reached Sealdah at 6.12am. However, the matter has been informed to the RPF officials concerned as well as the superintendent of railway police, Sealdah,” the Sealdah RPF replied to the complainant over twitter.

However, all this effort was in vain and the kheer-doi was probably enjoyed by some, for whom the pot was not intended for.

At 12.14pm, nearly three hours after the first message was tweeted, the complainant received a reply from the twitter handle @rpfsdah that stated: “Sir, officers and staff of RPF coaching post checked the coach at the Pit Line, but could not find the item. Any further progress in this regard will be intimated accordingly.”

The complainant, finally resigned to his fate, responded with a thanks.

There are several interesting requests the Indian Railways Seva and other twitter handles of the railways receive regularly.

At 2.43pm on Sunday, the ministry of railways’ twitter handle and that of IRCTC received an SOS from a youth, seeking help in tracing his grandmother who had boarded a wrong train at the Jharsuguda station by mistake.

He even tweeted a photograph of his granny in a chair car coach of a wrong train.

What followed was a flurry of activities by the railway officials. This time, it involved scanning of CCTV footage and exchange of ‘physical’ request letters between railway zones.

It was only on Monday morning that the complainant tweeted back to inform that his grandmother has been traced and is safe.