BackIRCTC among nine caterers fined by railways
IRCTC fined after cockroach found in food in Kolkata Rajdhani in July
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New Delhi: Indian Railways has imposed fines totalling 11.50 lakh on nine caterers including Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corp. (IRCTC) for serving “bad quality" food in trains.
“We had launched a special drive in the last month to detect quality of food being served on different trains. We found bad quality food on some trains and action was taken against caterers accordingly," a senior railway ministry official said. Besides IRCTC, RK Associates, Sunshine Caterers, Satyam Caterers and Brandavan Food Products were among those fined. “IRCTC was fined 1 lakh as a cockroach was found in the food in the Kolkata Rajdhani on 23 July," the official said adding, “Bad food was found in 13 trains".
Besides the Kolkata Rajdhani, other trains covered during the special drive include the Paschim Express, Pushpak Express, Motihari Express, Shiv Ganga Express, Golden Temple Mail, Netravati Express, Punjab Mail, Howrah-Amritsar Mail and Chandigarh Shatabdi. While in some trains food was found to be kept in unhygienic conditions, in others it was either found to be stale or substandard, the official said, adding fines ranging from 50,000 to 1 lakh have been imposed. “A caterer would lose its licence if found at fault five times," the official said. Plagued by a number of complaints regarding the quality of food, the railways has made a concerted attempt to improve quality of food being served in trains.
Railway minister Sadananda Gowda had announced in the rail budget to make course correction in catering service to address the problem. According to the plan, top caterers like ITC, MTR and Haldiram have been appointed to serve pre-cooked food in trains on a trial basis. Six trains, including three premier trains the Rajdhani, the Duronto and the Shatabdi have been selected for introduction of pre-cooked food by ITC, MTR and Haldiram. Items like chicken chettinad, Hyderabadi biryani, sambar rice and rajma chawal are among the dishes to be offered on these trains. The pre-cooked food will be packaged, which will be required to put into a microwave oven before being served. “We will try pre-cooked food in trains for a week and depending upon the response, it will be introduced in other trains on a regular basis," the official said.
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