Within just 10 years, a man named Shyam Bihari Agrawal built an illegal empire to the tune of 500 hundreds of crore by monopolizing the catering of Rail Neer drinking water to the Indian Railways. Last Friday, CBI raided Shyam Bihari's residence in South Delhi and recovered 27 crore in the Rail Neer scandal. The CBI sleuths found out that Shyam Bihari's staff have been selling contaminated water under the disguise of pure, mineral water.
Shyam Bihari owns the popular Comesum restaurants chain at several railway stations across India. Apparently, Shyam Bihari, a Chattisgarhi, has a 70% state in the pantry car business in I​ndian Railways under his company RK Associates & Hoteliers and has contracts in the country's premium trains, including Shatabdi and Rajdhani express apart from 150 other major trains.
Shyam has strong nexus with top bureaucrats and politicians, including two former railway ministers with whose help he procured all the important contracts. The CBI filed an FIR on four of Shyam's companies, while the IT sleuths will join the investigation to probe the 27 crore recovered in the search operation.
The CBI also booked Shyam Bihari's two sons, two former officials of Northern Railways, the former Chief Commercial Managers MS Chalia and Sandeep Silas, a 1983 batch IRS officer, had earlier worked as PS to former union ministers Ambika Soni and Oscar Fernandes.