Catering services in all trains to be taken over by IRCTC by year-end

Passengers in seven Rajdhani and six Shatabdi trains will have an option for the e-catering facility. As per the catering policy 2010, the zonal railways were managing catering services in majority trains till now. There are about 350 trains including Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Duronto which are equipped with pantry cars, reports HT. Railways will also conduct third party audit at pantry cars, base kitchens and food stalls to ensure best practice. This all will be done to improve food quality at the rail premises. “We have hired two reputed companies to do the third party audits at food stalls and pantry cars,” Jamshed said. In 2010, then Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee had announced the policy in which catering responsibility was taken away from the IRCTC and zonal railways were asked to look after the food services. However, since complaints against food quality were increasing constantly, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu decided to go for a new catering policy aiming to improve food services. Jamshed said now options have been given to passengers in a few Shatabdi, Rajdhani and Duronto trains to opt out of the catering services while booking tickets. Passengers have to specifically opt out from the mandatory food option and catering charges will be excluded from the ticket fare.