Food on track: Railway catering to get a facelift after IRCTC takeover

Plans are also afoot to rope in multinational players that operate lounges in airports across the world

As part of its strategy to overhaul the catering business to supply quality food to passengers, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) this year has taken over the operations of 333 out of 335 mobile pantry cars that were run by contractors.

This is the railway public sector undertaking’s alternative revenue model. After demonetisation, the government disallowed the company from imposing service charges on online tickets. 

Experts say this can be seen as a strategy to compensate the company, which had lost Rs 500 crore per annum in revenue 

on account of that.

According to the new catering policy, launched in