Water ATMs of Indian Railways: Causing a silent revolution

Abstract

The case discusses the red tape in the installation and operationalising of automatic water vending machines (AWVMs or popularly, water ATMs) in the railway stations on behalf of the Indian Railways (IR) from the perspectives of the protagonist Mr Siya Ram. Siya Ram is the group general manager of the ‘Rail Neer’ initiative of the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), a Government of India enterprise. Rail Neer is the bottled water brand of IRCTC.

The case deals with the product development and project execution of installing water ATMs in Indian railway stations. The project was conceptualized as early as 2007; nearly 50 water ATMs were installed in several railway stations, but the project was soon declared closed due to numerous operational hurdles. The Ministry of Railways (MoR) revived the project in 2015 and assigned IRCTC to install water ATMs in 7,500 stations. After the due process, IRCTC empanelled a set of qualified vendors to install the water ATMs; but the overall progress of commissioning and operationalizing was far from impressive. There were huge delays and hiccups, which had commercial implications for the vendors. Therefore, vendors were likely to be discouraged and could choose to not engage any further in the project. According to Mr Siya Ram, the fundamental issue was the delay in roll out of water ATMs arising due to lack of coordination between the vendors, station superintends, and IRCTC. How he attempts to resolve the issue is the focus of the case.