?Central railway to work on hygiene and quality of food served at station stalls

Indian Railways old coaches are set for a makeover that will keep them static, but useful. The Railway Board has instructed its zones to convert overaged coaches into rail-themed restaurants to generate revenue and provide employment. The board in its letter has said rail museums and heritage parks that witness substantial footfall, has the potential to increase its revenue and generate additional employment by opening rail coach restaurants.

"Railways might convert and refurbish its overage coaches into rail theme-based restaurants to cater to the general public," a senior official said.

Citing the example of the Shan-e-Bhopal -- India's first multi-cuisine rail-coach restaurant located in Bhopal -- the board said such eateries were popular among tourists and the general public.

The design and layout may be decided by engaging agencies in the field of architecture and hospitality sector, the letter said. The zones should formulate proposals and sanction appropriate works for rejuvenation and strengthening railway museums, heritage parks, galleries, providing facilities for differently-abled visitors and installation of CCTV cameras, it added.

The letter has also listed a protocol to be followed in restoring vintage saloons and coaches in museums, which require regular up-keep and periodic refurbishing. It has instructed assessment of such coaches by professional agencies to formulate a detailed report of their current status of preservation and work needed for restoration.

Earlier, the Indian Railways had floated a plan to lease out eight royal saloons to private hotel chains or tour operators. Last December, it had floated an expression of interest (EoI), seeking proposals from private firms to refurbish the bogeys and operate them as restaurants on a revenue-sharing model on a 25-year lease. On January 9, representatives of five of the country's top catering chains, besides an internationally-known travel firm, had showed interest.

In order to upgrade quality of food served on trains, the IRCTC is to set up new kitchens and upgrade existing ones, parliament was told on Wednesday.

"The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited (IRCTC) has been mandated to carry out the unbundling by creating a distinction primarily between food preparation and food distribution on trains. In order to upgrade quality of food preparation, IRCTC is to set up new kitchens and upgrade existing ones," Minister of State for Railways Rajen Gohain told the Lok Sabha in a written reply.

He said that the new policy which was floated on February 27 last year mandates the zonal railways to hand over the kitchens managed by them to IRCTC.

"Food Plaza, fast food units and food court will continue to be managed by IRCTC. At present, IRCTC has taken over almost all units in phased manner," he said.

He also said that the procedure laid down for allotment of contracts for running various stalls at railway platforms have also been simplified.

The minister said that the revamping of existing railway catering system by carrying out unbundling under Catering Policy 2017 is aimed at providing quality hygienic food to customers at affordable prices.

Highlighting the initiatives of the IRCTC to upgrade the mobile catering services in the trains, Gohain said: "The menu of prepaid trains has been revised to upgrade the quality of meal served to the passengers and the meal trays of bio-degradable material with air tight sealed cover for packing of meals from kitchens has been introduced initially in selected Rajdhani and Duronto trains."

Beside two initiatives, the IRCTC has also launched provision of hand sanitizers in prepaid trains and this is provided to the travelling passengers before service of meal.

The Minister further said that the IRCTC has deployed supervisors for on-board monitoring of catering services. "The on board monitoring staff have been provided with pre-installed complaint or feedback monitoring application on mobile tablets. Further, CCTV cameras have been installed in base kitchens for real time monitoring," Gohain said.

"Sixteen base kitchens of the IRCTC have been up-graded with modern and mechanised equipments. Food safety supervisors have been deployed in IRCTC managed base kitchens for audit of food safety, hygiene and sampling of the cooked food and raw material," he said.

The Minister further said that the service trolleys have been introduced in Rajdhani and Duronto trains for smooth service and the IRCTC has also introduced the billing through POS machines in selected mobile units to avoid overcharging of meal by service providers.

"The railways has also introduced ready to eat meals in order to enable the passengers to have variety in meals in the train," he added.

KOSH Oats, an oats brand of Future Consumer Limited, has tied up with the catering service providers of Indian Railways for serving oats in select Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains.

This meal is available on select Rajdhani and Shatabdi train routes. They are served as a package with the ticket till August 14. During this association, parathas made using KOSH Wheat + Oats Atta will be served to approximately 4.5 lakh travellers. Additionally, the travellers will get an discount voucher of Rs.50 off on the brand.

Rahul Kansal, Head, Business Strategy and Marketing, Future Consumer Limited, “Railways serve fresh cooked meals to millions of travellers every day and we are extremely delighted to incorporate KOSH Oats in these meals.”

Lite Bite Foods, owned by Dabur Scion Amit Burman has partnered with IRCTC (The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation) to offer scrumptious and high quality cuisines in train.

The restaurant will offer food at a budget price to commuters travelling by Indian Railways.

“We are delighted to tie up with Indian Railways; we look forward to cater passengers across the country with best of our delicacies. Every passenger can now opt for his/her favourite cuisine, who earlier preferred to munch chips and biscuits than buying food on the train,” said Rohit Aggarwal, Director, Lite Bite Foods.

The services will be offered at New Delhi, Nizamudddin, Old Delhi and Delhi Cantt railway stations

The tie up is a part of IRCTC’s endeavor to offer varied cuisines to passengers to choose from its newly launched e-catering service.

Railway passengers can now relish the delicious north Indian thali by Street Foods by Punjab Grill.

A passenger can order either by logging on to IRCTC’s E-Catering website (http://ecatering.irctc.co.in/eCatering/) or through IRCTC’s toll-free number 1800-1034-139 and 0120-2383892-99 or an SMS to 139 giving details of their PNR and seat number.

“We also plan to extend the service to more stations gradually and introduce kiosks of Lite Bite Foods’ core brands (Punjab Grill, Baker Street, Asia 7) at various Railway Stations,” added Sharad Sachdeva, CEO, Lite Bite Foods.

The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has recently identified 1,144 more trains for extension of its e-catering service, which allows passengers to get the food of their choice from leading food chains delivered to their seat via online or SMS booking.

With this tie up, Lite Bite Foods has expanded its presence and entered the railways, the company was earlier awarded the food & beverage concessions at Mumbai Airport and New Delhi Airport and has set up Street Food by Punjab Grill, Baker Street and also operates various other brands at the airports such as – Pizza Hut, KFC, Krispy Kreme and 4700 BC.