new delhi beware the piping hot tea that you drink from that harmless looking cup at a railway station might keep you warm but it could be very harmful come winters and unauthorised vendors at smaller stations resort to mixing urea and other harmful cheap additives rather than milk in teathe practice is prevalent with smaller vendors that just make way into the train with a kettle and a few kulhars earthen cups a senior northern railway official said we have to be extra vigilant at the smaller railway stations there are also certain routes in uttar pradesh where this problem is particularly prevalentsmall vendors cannot afford to make tea from milk so they use these cheaper additives to make more tea which is profitable the problem amplifies in winters as the consumption of tea increases because of the extreme cold in the northern regionat larger railway stations like new delhi railway station and hazrat nizamuddin there is quality control and it is not possible for the smalltime vendors to sell this ureabased synthetic milk tea at small stations these vendors just jump in the train and hand out this tea which can be harmful we have caught some people who had vials of these harmful additives with them said the officialrailways has developed a system of giving space to authorised vendors and lifting food samples from them regularly these samples are tested and then passed the official said we regularly check how safe they are but we do not have a way to stop this synthetic milk tea at smaller stations the staff in the train has to really shoo these unauthorised vendors we do have special drives and even surprise checks to stop themin 2003 from april to november around 1973 unauthorised vendors and hawkers were caught in the delhi region this figure also includes vendors indulging in making harmful tea so be it any time of the year and anywhere you are travelling just stick to authorised vendors with proper token numbers