Soon, healthy food on Rly platter to woo passengers

The Indian Railways, under specific instructions from Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, is attempting to make a serious bid at earning public goodwill.

The Indian Railways, under specific instructions from Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, is attempting to make a serious bid at earning public goodwill. Lalu had recently told his top brass that it was now time to win over the public rather than just focus on revenues.

As a step towards it a special menu, comprising of eatables cooked with less spices and oil, for passengers suffering from diabetes, high blood pressure and cardiac problems, and Reverse Osmosis (R-O) purified water costing Rs 3 for 1 litre and Rs 2 for a glass would be served. “As many as 400 sites have already been allotted at 34 railway stations for setting up these water-vending machines,” Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation’s MD P K Goel said. “Private players, Ion Exchange, Kent RO and Nuchem Weir, will set up these machines,” he said.

To be installed initially at railway stations at Ambala, Lucknow, Allahabad, Vijaywada, Secunderabad, Nanded, Hyderabad, Guntur, Danapur and Vishakhapatnam, IRCTC plans to get 1,600 such machines installed at all the important stations by December 2007. “Considering that a packaged bottle of drinking water costs nothing less than Rs 10, this will come as a major relief for the customers,” Goel said. The private players will get to set up and operate these machines for a period of 5 years after paying an annual licence fee of around Rs 25,000 per machine.

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Further, IRCTC plans to introduce special “diet menus” for passengers with health problems like diabetes, high blood pressure and cardiac problems. “All the items in a diet menu are cooked using less spices and oil. We have started serving these special menus on a pilot basis on three Rajdhani trains between Delhi, Mumbai and Howrah. By April 2007, we plan to have this specially cooked food on board 19 Rajdhani and 16 Shatabdi trains,” said an IRCTC official, adding that the move follows feedback from the public and reports that aged people were not eating the regular meals served.

Meanwhile, IRCTC has also decided to operate it’s cell kitchens and base kitchens through the Public-Private Partnership route. Tenders have been floated for 59 cell and base kitchens where private players would bid to renovate and run these kitchens, bringing in their own equipment. In return, they will get “assured business” by getting the rights to supply food to trains passing from their area for a period of 10 years.

IRCTC to set up call centre

IRCTC has awarded the task of setting up a call centre for Indian Railways to the Spanco Telesystems-Stracon-BSNL consortium. To be partially operationalised by March 2007, the call centre will act as a one-stop shop providing information on ticket bookings, waiting lists, confirmation, arrival and departure times of trains, location of a particular train and tour-packages available. Railways users will be able to access all these informations by dialing 139, at local call charges, from landlines or cellphones. The facility of SMS alerts will also be provided.