BUSINESS: According to reports, passenger complaints related to food quality and hygiene on Indian Railways have increased from 1,192 at the end of March 2022 to 6,948 between April 2023 and February 2024, a 500 per cent rise. Such complaints have also come from passengers on premium train services such as Vande Bharat, Rajdhani, Shatabdi, Duronto and Mail Express, according to a response to an RTI query filed by CNBC-TV18. The response provided by the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) also reveals that the total number of catering complaints stood at 11,850 between April 2021 and February 2024. In light of these complaints, IRCTC has issued 68 show-cause notices and cancelled three contracts between January 2021 and March 2024. Complaints per meal have decreased: IRCTC IRCTC has stressed on interpreting the above data in the right context. It has pointed out that there has been a significant decline in the “complaint rate of food served between 2021-22 and 2023-24”. IRCTC clarified in an email, “After the resumption of cooked food in 2021-22 (January 2022), on an average 14 quality/hygiene complaints were received per day, which is 0.0029 per cent of the approximately 500,000 cooked meals served per day.
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20 quality/hygiene complaints were received per day in 2023-24, which is 0.0012 per cent of the total meals served.” Additionally, IRCTC also clarified that while only three contracts were cancelled, the service providers were “treated fairly” as per the terms and conditions of the contract. It said that “action against service providers is taken based on the severity of each case”. Poor food quality: A persistent problem? Earlier, in 2017, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) had highlighted the issue of food quality in the Indian Railways in a report. The report had revealed that the Indian Railways caterers “consistently failed to protect the food served to passengers from flies, insects, dust, rats and cockroaches”. Another data cited in the CNBC-TV18 report shows that between April 2023 and February 2024, passengers on Vande Bharat trains received 123 complaints about stale food and food items containing dead insects, flies and cockroaches. In 2022, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had informed the Lok Sabha that the railways’ catering arm, IRCTC, had received over 5,000 complaints related to the quality of food on trains in seven months. Corrective measures
In the year 2023,
the Railway Board issued a directive to various railway zones and IRCTC to implement a series of immediate measures aimed at addressing complaints and grievances related to catering services on Vande Bharat trains. The Railway Board also directed the zonal managers to ensure that announcements are made on all Vande Bharat trains to inform passengers about the availability of food and to improve the quality of food preparation. In addition, Indian Railways announced fines ranging from Rs 5,000 to Rs 5 lakh and termination of contracts for those failing to maintain hygiene in preparing and distributing food on trains. “We follow a well-laid-out quality and hygiene checking system, wherein food samples are regularly checked in NABL-accredited laboratories. The kitchens are monitored through CCTV, etc. To further improve quality and reduce catering-related complaints, long-term cluster tenders are being finalised for setting up modern base kitchens across India,” IRCTC further said in its email.
