OREANDA-NEWS. August 26, 2011.   Due to intensive monitoring and supervision of Railways, the number of complaints reported in catering have reduced substantially by 48 per cent since September 2010 upto July 2011, in comparison to the corresponding period of last year after the transfer of catering activities to Zonal Railways from Indian Railways Catering and Tourism (IRCTC). During this period, about 24164 inspections have been carried out by Zonal Railways for the improvement of catering services.

 A system is in place on the Zonal Railways in which the Supervisors and officers periodically inspect the catering establishments, and also interact with the passengers on the trains to obtain a first hand knowledge of deficiencies observed with feed back from passengers. Zonal Railways proactively take corrective action on the deficiencies and irregularities found during inspections. For providing hot and fresh food in important trains like Rajdhani/Duronto Express train, a pantry car is attached to the train which has the facility to keep food fresh through deep freeze/refrigeration equipment, and to serve food hot they have food warmers and hot cases. This facility is also available in the pantry cars attached to a few important Mail/Express train.

 For other trains, Train Side Vending (TSV) facility is being gradually extended to provide satisfactory catering service to passengers. Policy guidelines for the arrangement for TSV to provide good quality hygienic food to passengers in the trains, in which pantry cars are not provided, have been issued to the Zonal Railways. Railways have also planned to construct and operate base kitchens at nominated points to provide hot and fresh food to the passengers.

 This information was given by the Minister of State for Railways Shri Bharatsinh Solanki in written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today.