“At Chennai Airport Coffee Day, I asked for tea. Offered hot water and tea bag, price ₹135. Horrified, I declined. Was I right or wrong?” This tweet by former Union Minister P. Chidambaram on Sunday morning gained considerable traction and evoked a range of responses from users of Twitter.
The tweet had received over 2,800 retweets and 1,300 likes as on Sunday evening.
Meanwhile, Mr. Chidambaram had continued sharing his experience and posted another tweet, where he said he had asked who purchased coffee priced at ₹180. “The answer was 'many'. Am I outdated?” he tweeted.
‘Reality hits’
Among the number of responses he received for his first tweet, asking people if he was right or wrong in declining the tea because of its price, were those from Twitter users who asked if he had been unaware of the prices for so long.
“This happens when one is in Opposition for so many years. Reality hits badly, sir,” one user quipped. A few other users asked if this was the first time Mr. Chidambaram was paying for himself, , stating that prices had always been high in shops in the airport.
“When you were the Finance Minister, these coffee shops also sold tea-coffee almost at the same rate, then you never tweeted. Why?” a user asked.
One user even pointed him in the direction of the Indian Railways for domestic travel and said that tea, coffee and bottled water were cheaper there.
The flurry of replies to his tweets led to a debate of sorts on the pricing of food in airports. Claiming that the price of a coffee at the Delhi airport was Rs 200, and all eatables in airports were priced sky high, a Twitter user called for “collective wisdom”.
Officials at the Chennai airport said special prices were allowed for packaged items at special outlets, like those in airports. “If they sell above the specially allowed MRP for airports, then we can take action. For those who find this expensive, we have a separate counter at the airport where tea, coffee and water bottles are sold at a much cheaper price,” said an official.
