Improving quality of catering services

In order to achieve the objective of improving quality of catering services in Indian Railways various steps listed below have been undertaken in recent years. Here is a brief summary of the initiatives. If you have additional inputs on what else should be done to improve quality of catering, kindly share the same.

We look forward to your inputs!


New Catering Policy has been issued on 27th February 2017 with the objective to provide quality food to rail passengers by unbundling of catering services on trains. IRCTC has been mandated to carry out the unbundling by creating a distinction primarily between food preparation and food distribution. In order to upgrade quality of food preparation IRCTC will set up new kitchens and upgrade existing ones.

The salient features of the new Catering Policy 2017 are as under: -

IRCTC to manage catering service on all mobile units. Pantry car contracts awarded by zonal railway to be reassigned to IRCTC.

Meals for all mobile units to be picked up from the nominated kitchens owned, operated and managed by IRCTC.

IRCTC not to outrightly outsource or issue licenses for provision of catering services to private licensees. IRCTC to retain the ownership and be fully accountable for all the issues pertaining to setting up and operation of the Base Kitchens and quality of food.

IRCTC to engage service providers from hospitality industry for service of food in trains.

Kitchen structures/land/space to be handed over by zonal Railways to IRCTC, for a period of 10 years extendable for another period of 5 years, on a token license fee.

IRCTC to be responsible for management of Food Plaza, Food Courts, Fast food units within the ambit of this policy.

The setting up/ development / refurbishment of new or existing Base Kitchens/Kitchen units to be undertaken by IRCTC. These kitchens are to be owned, operated and managed by IRCTC. The new base kitchens would be set up through PPP ensuring best in class vendors and practices to get incorporated. International consultants Price Water House Coopers has been engaged to developed the concessionaire agreement document for Base Kitchens and Services on board trains. The main features of the new contract are:

a) Two packet system is being strictly implemented to allow only those vendors which have good credentials.
b) The eligibility criteria for vendors have been re-looked to allow more reputed vendors to participate.
c) Licensing model for catering contracts is being relooked to make the mobile vending viable and with right incentives and penalties to eliminate overcharging
d) Economic viability of base kitchens is being worked out to make vendors avoid short cuts.
e) Training of staff of the vendors being made mandatory
f) IRCTC to supervise the base kitchens by recruiting professionals
g) Route approach is being adopted to ensure good quality on the entire route.
h) Unbundling in food preparation and food distribution is being implemented in the SBD
i) Use of Technology is being mandated to prevent overcharging by issue of electronic receipts and tracking of food
j) Prior approval of IRCTC is being mandated to ensure food from reputed brands and at the right price is supplied.
k) Document mandates supply of Janta khana to cater to the demand of the poor
l) Mandating pre booking of food in all trains to avoid overcharging
m) Mandating regular feedback from passengers and linking the performance to payment to the vendor
IRCTC to involve/empanel Self Help groups for providing catering related services.
Zonal railway to manage static unit (catering stall /milk stalls/ trolleys etc.) except base kitchens and kitchen units to be handed over to IRCTC at A-1 and A class stations.
Provision of perpetual renewal has been done away with. Now it has been envisaged that tenure of all static units (except kitchen units and Food Plaza) shall be 5 years only. Tenure of Food Plaza shall be for a period of 9 years.
Allotments of General Minor Units at all category stations to be done through open, competitive, two-packet tendering system from the eligible bidders by divisions.
For the first time, it has been envisaged that allotment of Special Minor units (reserved category) at all category stations will be done by divisions through open tendering system within the similar reserved category. The technical eligibility criterion has been simplified.
33 % sub quota for women in allotment of each category of minor catering units at all category of station to be provided.

E-Catering
E-catering service on IR is managed by IRCTC. Initially, e-catering service was train specific and made available in 1350 trains which did not have services of Pantry car or Train Side Vending. As a major initiative during September 2015, this scheme has been reoriented to make it ‘Station Based E-Catering’ in place of train specific e-catering. In the first phase, a pilot project has been undertaken on 45 major stations and subsequently extended to all ‘A-1’ & ‘A’ category of stations which is presently under implementation. E-catering service is now available on 357 railway stations and the average supply of meals under this scheme is around 6000 meals per day which was around 400 meals per day during Oct’ 2015.

Revamp of E-Catering services in September 2015 also permitted Food Aggregators to join the E-Catering initiative. Aggregators like, Railrestro, Zoop, Comesum, Mera Food Choice, Rail Darbar have been integrated through API covering 529 vendors and 244 offline vendors have also been incorporated for e-catering services across 357 stations.

Passengers travelling from these stations are now able to access E-Catering facilities for all trains passing through these stations. IRCTC is facilitating booking of meals through a specified phone number/ website / SMS / Mobile Apps etc. Passengers having mobile number are able to book meals under this scheme. CoD facility to passengers under this scheme has also been made available. more