Now, Railways to offer Meal of your Choice

Now, Railways to offer Meal of your Choice

IRCTC is now providing station based e-catering facility that will allow the passengers to order food of their choice from private caterers

Indian Railway passengers who are tired of eating the same old meals and are tired of surfing through the menu cards at Jan Ahaar stalls have a reason to cheer for. Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) is now providing station based e-catering facility that will allow the passengers to order food of their choice from private caterers. The facility is going to be introduced in phases at 45 railway stations in the country, which also includes Pune. The service, however will be available only at the stations and not moving trains.

IRCTC is soon expected to float Expressions of Interest (EOIs) to ensure partnerships with private food stores which include KFC, Haldiram’s, McDonald’s, Bikanerwala, Nirulas, Subway, Pizza Hut, Sarvana Bhavan and more. To popularise the e-catering facility on stations, the PSU has also decided to develop mobile based applications. Talking about the new service, Manoj Jhawar, the Pune Division Railway PRO said, “IRCTC has not yet declared when the service will begin in Pune, however in the guidelines it has made clear that a minimum of five vendors will be shortlisted for each session by IRCTC to make sure that the passengers get a variety of choices.”

The facility has been announced in accordance with the Railway Budget’s announcement of broadening the horizons of e-catering service. The facility will be extended to other stations in the country after assessing the response of these 45 stations. The stations which will receive the facility include Pune, New Delhi, Howrah, Chennai Central, Mumbai Central, Delhi, Bangalore, Patna, Lucknow, Bhubaneswar, Madurai, Amritsar, Thiruvananthapuram Central, Kanpur Central, Allahabad, Chandigarh, Gorakhpur, Sealdah, Vadodara, New Jalpaiguri, Vishakhapatnam, Mughalsarai, Varanasi, Jaipur, Bilaspur, Kharagpur, Anand Vihar, Nizamuddin, Ludhiana, Secunderabad, Tirupati, Vijayawada, Chennai Egmore, Ernakulam, Kozhikode, Thrisur, Yasvantpur, Nagpur, Agra Cantt, Gwalior, Jhansi, Surat, Ahmedabad, Bhopal and Guwahati .