``There was not a drop of water in the train till Panaji station. When we raised a hue and cry about it, they filled water in all the compartment tanks there. However, as all the pipes in our compartment were leaking, there was no water for us in spite of this,'' a passenger said.

Passengers travelling by that compartment have registered a complaint in the complaint book available with the guard aboard the train. The complaint states that ``there was no water either from the tap above the corridor sink or in the toilets soon after the train left Trivandrum railway station. The toilet doors did not lock and the air conditioner pipes were reportedly leaking.''

According to another passenger,``The staff gave differing reasons for the water problem. While some said there was a minor fault, others said there was no water as the repair work on the train had not been completed on time. In fact, passengers started fighting for the lone bucket of water provided by the staff in the toilet of compartment A-1.''

Express Newsline contacted Northern Railway PRO Chandralekha Mukherjee: ``This train enters the northern zone only in the last leg of the journey. We cannot be held responsible for what happens elsewhere.''

``Anyway, it is a rare case. Such incidents are not common aboard the Rajdhani Express which is given priority over other trains. However, we will contact authorities in other zones and investigate why there was no water available.''This complaint is just one amongst scores of others about the Rajdhani Express being perennially late and the food available on board being stale.

As Rajdhani Express trains connect Delhi to important cities like Mumbai, Trivandrum, Bhubaneshwar, Bangalore, Patna, Hyderabad, Chennai, Jammu, Guwahati and Calcutta, the impact is being felt in all quarters.