Ever came across experience of food poisoning or paani-jyaada chai on a railway joint or onboard train – Did you ask a question as to who is catering it? Well, most of it would have been monopolized by the catering services of IRCTC.
Even though IRCTC is a subsidiary of Indian Railways, they have now decided to strip IRCTC from its catering responsibilities in Rajdhani, Duronto, Shatabdi and all other mail and express trains on account of increased passenger complaints about sub-standard food quality.
During the budget, Railway Minister Mamta Banerjee had hinted to end the monopoly in catering and a total restructuring of relationship between IRCTC and Railways – which took shape in the form of the Catering Policy- 2010 finalized by Railways providing that it shall take-over the management of all catering services as contracts come up for renewal.
Let’s have a small check as to what are the experiences of travelers as posted on Indian Consumer Complaints Forum:
1) T Gautaman: I agree. Railway food is just one rung lower than airline food, which is also mostly crap. The railways and IRCTC think that people travel only occasionally, so they can be forced to consume below mediocre food and beverages as they are captive customers during the journey.
2) Sankaranarayanan: The food at train was very worst even a dog will not eat that that type of food was given when I traveled on Navajeevan exp from Ahmedabad to Chennai on 22nd NOV-2009 PNR NO-8136547941.
Normally a 250ml of sealed pack of water will be served with meal was not given when I asked the supplier he was taking very roughly. These types of incidents give very very very bad impressions on IRCTC. I dont know IRCTC for us or we for IRCTC?
As if all above news are not enough – here is a heart breaking news as well.
IRCTC has also bagged the rights to provide catering service to sportspersons as well as team officials as per their dietary requirements during the Commonwealth Games.
See the drama surrounding it – IRCTC has set up a nodal office which will oversee the entire catering operation and hold consultations with nutrition experts and others. If you’re to be one of those spectators at any of the venues – beware! The IRCTC is also considering about selling its delicacies to you in the stadiums.
Should I wish pink of the health to the players participating in CWG?
This brings into light one more CWG-related controversial announcement by the government in terms of awarding the catering rights of the grand event to IRCTC. If this step – the one of stripping IRCTC off the catering contracts with Railways – was seen coming, why was it allowed to serve as CWG food caterers?
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The railway cattering is old wine in new bottle.ther is no qality/quantity check by qalified personals like Dietcians/Nutritionists.hygiene is not being maintained.Necessary eary steps should be taken.
I agree with the statement of Sankarnarayan…
i am searching for the pnr status of my seat – i am not able to get the updated result – where should i check
Hi ,
Am really upset with IRCTC website as i had booked a ticket on this site for my native varanasi . But unfortunenatly i had to cancel my trip due to unexpected reasons . I found that i had forgot my password and was unable to login and here started by quest to cancel the ticket.
I first wrote an email to IRCTC website and then logged a complaint at http://theindustrymeasure.com/2011/05/24/irctc-login/ . But there was response to my email and complaint and since the day of travel was nearing i was tensed as the amount was large as the tickets were 1st AC . Then i was told by my friend that IRCTC operates the call center and i tried to call them to no avail and after finally reaching the number i was faced with a rude agent who was not upto the mark in english and was mixing Hindi and English and also not understanding what i was saying . Finally he said that you need to call back as the system is slow .. After 3 more tries i got my tickets cancelled but it was a tense moment for me. I hope someone from IRCTC is listening …Please fix this asap.
really.catering by irctc can not be accept in cwg.As it is manifested that in that grand sports event india is exposed to all across the world and again CWG event is in criticising state due to plenty of reason like poor leaving condition for the players ,uncomplete stadium and much more .
i am find job in indian railways in any food department
Dear Gentleman,
Can any one of you justify that Who was running IRCTC ?
Chairman of Railway Board Mr. Vivek Sahai is also the chairman of IRCTC.
If he gives statement that Due to Compalints Railway had taken back the catering from IRCTC. what he was doing in those days when complaint become more, was he sleeping and enjoying…… ? Shameless Chairman of Railway Board Mr. Vivek Sahai has to resign from his job as he also become failure, if he says IRCTC is failure. heads off to Mamta Banerjee she doesn’t know the responsibility of Chairman of Railway Board Mr. Vivek Sahai.
Sir,
I happen to read in news papers that railways are going to improve its catering department in trains and thats the reason why it has taken back the contract from IRCTC.But sorry to inform you that I was travelling in Kalka Shatapdhi on 14 Aug 2010 and the snacks provided were of sub standard.
Have we ever tried to peep into the red tapism that doesnot allow PSU’s to operate in a professional. The same happend here to. If the prices are not increased since 1998 for food items sold over trains n stations despite huge inflation in the last half decade imagine what would you get in form of cook & serve food items. One would get very few complaints in packed n branded snacks which are sold at MRP as nothing canbe done abt it. But the deciding / governing body of IRCTC,i.e; the railways should know abt tht the spending power & choices of a common man has changed over the last decade. they should hv bought some increase in price & you would be satisfied with quality, quantity etc. A profit making PSU is being manipulated in such a way that soon it will declared loss making and than disinvested in hands of some waiting pvt companies by these corrupt politicians. Lets get ready for some amazing watery teas, puri bhajis, loose curds and what not….
In my knowledge IRCTC is doing good job but if Govt. think then I welcome its decision on New Catering Policy in Indian Railways.wish now we can get good/hygiene as well as hot food in Trains. I read some on http://www.lawisgreek.com/india-legal-news-new-catering-policy-indian-railways/
I have an IRCTC account which is locked second time.
When i tried to reset the password through forget password link, it asks User id, question and Answer. I provided all the details and it throws an error “Answer is Incorrect”. This happend second time and both the times i tried to login through the actual password.
I waited for a week and there was no response from IRCTC customer care. I called them up on 24 Hrs. Customer Support at 011-23340000 and it took about 12 calls to make them understand about the issue. When ever i called up the customer support the person attnding the call will redirect me to someone else after listening to my detail and again i need to explain whole story, inshort that was waste of time and money.
I sent an email at [email protected] also submit at http://www.consumercourt.in/railways/14030-irctc-login.html and got an automated email as Ticket Confirmation for the request.
IRCTC should hire service and satisfaction oriented support executives so that it a common man has no pain of wasting time and money.
Why dont you people take it positively?
In fact Railways is trying to make the nation stronger!!
When the food contains some thing harmful to the body, the body produces antibody to fight the germs. If you keep eating hygenic food, the body forgets how to produce antibody.
The Indian Railways has taken the responsibility of making the nation stronger by serving such food so that the bodies keep producing antibody to fight virus.
If the people survive their food, they increase the quality of their food (in the opposite direction i.e. more worse food) to test the limits of the bodies.
This is true. Just see this test. Dont complain and keep eating what ever they serve. The standard will go down (they assume that you have agreed to their quality and try to serve you some more less standard food) Once ppl start complaining they realize that ppl reached their limit and fix the standard there.
Lets help them in their efforts to make India healthy the Railways way by eating what ever they serve and by critisizing articles like these :)
Excellent. Kapil Sibal will take this opportunity to announce a new reform in education. Since railways are taking up additional responsibility of strengthening the national health status, he will announce that a large no. of public health care centers are not needed anymore and he will have them converted into classrooms with revolutionizing facilities. ‘Revolutionizing’ means your ‘head’ will undergo revolutions at 1500 rpm after hearing his policy.