Former railway minister Dinesh Trivedi has exposed the rot in the railways and hit out at the government for the poor standards of hygiene maintained on trains, including premium category ones like the Shatabdi Express, by showing the contaminated beverages being served to passengers.

Trivedi boarded the Shatabadi to Delhi on Saturday and showed to CNN-News18 the dirty water and lemon juice that was served to him. “Today is Dussehra. I just opened the Fresca lime water and see what I found inside. Have a look at it. This is what we are supposed to drink,” he said in a video, as he displayed the juice pack with grime at its base

He rued the fact that fares have been hiked so much but even then clean water is not available on trains. Slamming the BJP government at the Centre, he said the people must protest against the poor facilities or they will continue to suffer.

“We too are responsible for this as we do not protest enough. We take a shot of it, it runs in your channel, people will tweet it and railways will say this is what the company has given us,” he said and demanded that the government cancel Fresca’s contract.

The TMC leader, who was sacked as railway minister in 2012 after proposing formation of a rail regulator for fare hikes, said that there must be surprise checks on vendors contracted by the railways. The government had instituted a new catering policy this year to improve the quality of food. At the end of the video, Trivedi said that he may begrudgingly accept the poor quality of food but there can be no compromise when it comes to safety.

The railway ministry thanked CNN-News18 for highlighting the issue and tweeted that it would take action on the complaint. “Catering supervisor has met Dinesh Trivedi Ji on the train regarding this issue. We will be taking further action based on this complaint. Thanks to @CNNnews18 FOR HIGHLIGHTING this issue,” the ministry of railways wrote.