Click to play videoMumbai: Mumbaikars always had the option getting a shoeshine on the go. But that luxury may soon be history. The shoeshine boys in Mumbai's local railway stations are now under threat from the new Central Railways regulations.
“I had to go for an interview and I looked all over the platform but there were no shoeshine boys,” says a commuter, Ankush.
The Central Railways has cancelled the license of the Shoeshine Association operating in Mumbai after the Association office bearers were found to be involved in financial irregularities.
At the Thane station, the shoeshine boys are already missing. “They did not let us sit there. We had to leave,” says a shoeshine boy at the station, Gopal.
However that’s not all that the Central Railways has done. It has now ordered all Shoeshine Associations in the city to get fresh licenses. A move that many feel is unwarranted.
"Societies that exploit should be punished, but all societies are not the same,” says President, Bombay Shoeshine Association, Dayaram.
Fresh tenders have been issued, despite a Railway Ministry order that licenses of Associations operating for more than 10 years should be renewed. In the event, many Associations fear they may lose out to competitors.
"The tender should be given to societies already working or else all of us would die of starvation,” says a shoeshine boy at Matunga station, Ram Pravesh Ram.
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