In a major policy initiative, the ministry of railways has decided to take over from Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) the management of catering services in base kitchens and in mobile catering units and to run these through the zonal railway units.
Currently, IRCTC provides food on-board 300 trains on the railways’ network. The corporation makes over 80 per cent of its revenues from licensee and departmental catering services.
According to the norms outlined in the policy, the base kitchens and the mobile catering units will be taken over by the zonal railways in a phased manner. To avoid disruption in services, the railways intend to manage the services through departmental supervision by engaging reputed professionals till the organisation is in a position to manage these departmentally.
IRCTC will primarily be restricted to operating food plazas, food courts and fast food units on station premises. The corporation, at present, operates around 65 food plazas across the country. IRCTC will continue to be responsible for selling online tickets and running the Rail Neer business of the railways.
Contracts for operating major and minor catering units will henceforth be awarded by zonal railways. IRCTC will not renew contracts on expiry. Existing contracts are required to be transferred to zonal railways by IRCTC
Zonal railways would determine the extent, type and scale of catering services to be provided at stations and on board trains. The zonal railways would put in place a monitoring mechanism to benchmark, standardise and audit production and food processes to improve the quality of catering on mobile units and base kitchens.
The zonal railways will be responsible for ensuring the standards, as laid down, are maintained and policy directives issued by the Railway Board from time to time are strictly complied with.
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Further, under the new catering policy the Railway Board would determine the menu and catering charges for meals on-board premium trains (Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Duronto), while the zonal railways would fix the menu and rates for items and food products available at Jan Aahar outlets. Rates of standard meals, beverages and packaged drinking water would be set by the Railway Board.
The zonal railways will also be instrumental in setting up a grid of modern mega, medium and small base kitchens to ensure all mobile catering is serviced through these to improve quality, hygiene, cleanliness and use of standard ingredients.
The policy underlines there should be no cooking on platforms at suburban stations.
The new policy comes in the wake of increased passenger complaints about the quality of food served onboard trains and in stations.