The Hindu Business Line : Four cos to run 80% of rail kiosks

New Delhi, Feb. 18 Balan Natural Foods, Surya Agro, Amalgamated Bean Coffee Trading and Nestle India have won the rights to operate nearly 80 per cent of the refreshment kiosks at railway stations. Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has awarded bids for 1,020 kiosks as on January 1 .

An estimated 660 crore passengers (2007-08) travel by the rail network annually.

Balan Natural Foods (275 kiosks) and Surya Agro (255 kiosks) have bagged rights for more than half of the kiosks, leaving behind majors such as Nestle India, Hindustan Lever, Pepsi Foods and Hindustan Coca-Cola.

Of the 1,020 kiosks awarded across States such as Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, 485 vending kiosks have been commissioned as on date, sources said.

Companies would be allowed to sell pre-cooked, packaged food items and beverages at railway stations at prices not higher than the maximum retail price. Moreover, they are required to offer 150 ml of tea for Rs 4 and an equal amount of coffee for Rs 5. For Railways, the average annualised revenue earned per kiosk would be about Rs 2 lakh.

Amalgamated Bean Coffee Trading (the company behind Café Coffee Day outlets) and Nestle India have bagged rights to operate 135 and 125 kiosks respectively. The contract period varies from 3 to 5 years.

The cola war between majors Pepsi Foods and Hindustan Coca-Cola continues on railway stations as well, with the companies bagging 80 and 70 kiosks respectively. Haldirams and Hindustan Lever have also won bids to run 25 kiosks each. Other firms that have been empanelled by IRCTC, allowing them to submit bids, include Rasna, Dabur Foods, Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (Amul), Lakshmi Brooke Coffee Hosts, Fresh and Honest Café, GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare, Bikanerwala Foods, Arambagh Hatcheries, Tata Coffee, Switz Foods and Kohinoor Foods.

IRCTC has fixed a minimum licence fee per annum per kioskdepending on the size and location. It grouped several kiosks, present in one or various closely located railway stations, into clusters. The cluster approach was adopted to ensure that operators got a critical mass of consumers at a station or in nearby stations. For example, one cluster consists of 19 stalls spread over Lucknow, Varanasi, Kanpur and Tundla stations; another includes kiosks at Chennai Central, Egmore, Tambaram, Pallavaram, Nungambakkam, Tiruvallur and Arakkonam.

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Coffee Day, Coca-Cola top bids for kiosks at Railway stations

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