"ACHE DIN" promise for commuters of Indian Railways yet to take off-The branded food dilemma

Though we have been hearing about dramatic changes being brought about in the Railway Catering services by the new government in Delhi, nothing much seems to be happening to justify such a big hype. If this government monopolistic agency is to be believed introduction of branded packed foods to passengers in some luxury trains is imminent to avoid complaints about food quality which are overwhelming the Railways with respite. A layman still does not understand what is the problem for this premier transportation agency to change the mindset and attitudes of its employees to take the travelers for granted. First of all it is still not clear why Railways want to undertake catering responsibility, considering the past bitter experience of government undertakings in hotel industry which is no match to well run private hotel chains in the country. It should have best left the catering to private players with tight supervisory role for the Railways to get responsive service from them under a strict deterrent regime and protocols. It is sad to see that in spite of decades of promises of providing better catering services, Railways failed to deliver on them. Recent explanation from the "Babus" regarding the catering fiasco is reflected in the following media report. 

"Flooded with complaints about the quality of the food served on trains, Railways had decided to provide ready-to-eat food as an additional option for its passengers by October 30. Even as he admitted that determining the prices for the branded food items was a factor that has led to the delay in the launch of the new menu on mail and express trains, Railway Member (Traffic), D P Pande, said, "It is being resolved now." While Railways is averse to the high price demand of the food manufacturers, the latter maintain that the rate of pre- cooked food like pav bhaji, chicken biryani, rajma chawal served up in sealed packages will be a bit more than the prices of the standard meals available in pantry cars. "We have made them agree to our approved rate and now the policy is being finalised and expected to be rolled out in a month from now," Pande said. He, however, said that the option will be launched on a select few trains in the first phase and more trains will be covered later on. It would be made available on mail and express trains which have a pantry car. The service is likely to be initially launched on trains such as Karnataka Express, Frontier Mail, Paschim Express where the trial of these pre-cooked food items are already being carried out. A committee comprising health officials and senior rail officials has been formed to examine the quality, hygienic condition and protein value of the packaged food. Since these items are pre-cooked, the committee will have to certify about its bacteria-free shelf life, said a senior railway ministry official.  The branded food would be served to passengers as an 'add on' option along with the standard items as part of the catering service on trains. However, the national transporter insists that price of the pre-cooked food will be kept on a par with the standard meals currently available on trains. Given the high volume and branding opportunity, the companies are being told to charge reasonable rates, the rail official said. As to the trials, the official said that pre-cooked food by reputed brands like ITC, MTR, Kohinoor Foods, Quickmeal and Deleez were made available on a few trains and the response of passengers was encouraging. "Our aim is to ensure quality hygienic food for passengers. It must also be seen that the brands of meals or food items -- their quality, quantity, rate, hygiene -- are properly maintained," the official added."

This Blogger had suggested way beck in 2011 that the catering services can be best provided by established processed food manufacturers, many of them able to supply a variety of foods, centrally processed that can be just warmed before serving to the passengers. This can be done by providing a dedicated pantry car in each train to a selected player with responsibility to maintain the same with some rudimentary facilities to warm/heat pre-prepared packed foods. One gets nostalgic about old days when a passenger could walk through the vestibuled train to the pantry car, order for the foods he wants and eat the same in a relaxed manner. Such pantry cars should have a few tables and chairs and a menu that satisfies most of the customers. The success of any catering will depend on the ability of the caterer to provide what the customer wants at a time desired by him during the duration of the travel. For the sake of a few more seats in each train pantry car system was dismantled landing the organization in a mess vis-a-vis food service.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com                   

"NEW" RAILWAY CATERING POLICY-OLD WINE IN NEW BOTTLE?

Indian Railways (IR) can rightly claim to be a gigantic behemoth but with little control on its "arms and limbs". If statistics can tell a story IR has a fantastic national foot print connecting various regions in the country, costing the citizen practically nothing, its fares being very low compared to other modes of transport. Whether IR measures up to the expectation of the citizen is another matter and as is usual with all government controlled bodies, IR is a highly bureaucratized agency with very little autonomy to decide any thing on its own and naturally this is reflected in all its services. Food catering service to millions of travelers in thousands of trains every day is no exception with no one happy with the quality and cost of food served both inside the trains as well as at most of the Railway Stations where many trains halt for brief duration. The separate agency set up for this service , viz Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) seems to have failed the traveling public which necessitated the parent body IR to take over the function. Here is a take on this comic circus being indulged by the IR to throw dust over the eyes of the hapless customers.

Seeking to allay apprehensions of members over the new catering policy of the railways, Government today said it aimed at improving quality of food and services to passengers. The government decided to implement the new policy last year in view of a spate of complaints regarding quality of food and services under the earlier arrangement with the IRCTC, Minister of State for Railways Bharat Singh Solanki said in the Rajya Sabha during Question Hour. "The reason behind bringing this new policy was that people should get quality food at reasonable price. The decision was taken because there was a public perception that the corporation was charging more money and better food could be made available at that cost," he said. The minister said the vendors are engaged by licencees on their own terms and conditions and Railways do not have any contractual relations with the vendors appointed by the licencees, both erstwhile and present. "Even though the licencee may change, the vendors are always working with the new licencees....as per the Catering Policy 2010, all existing operationalised catering licences for minor units have been permitted renewal, subject to satisfactory performance and payment of all dues, which will take care of interests of such vendors," he added.

It is interesting to note that it was left to a junior minister of GOI to speak about catering in the Rajya Sabha reflecting the low priority accorded to food service in the mind of the Railway Minister of cabinet rank! In what way IR can perform the service better than IRCTC under the new policy can be imagined knowing well the mindset of "babudom" that runs the ministry from top to bottom. In a scam scorched country like India will any "babu" take a serious decision on reforms for fear of being hauled up for corruption. Demolishing some thing is easy but building a more efficient system is fraught with umpteen number of hurdles in the form of red tapism and rigid set of rules of archaeological vintage! This blogger had suggested several times in the past that catering in Railways must be entrusted to well reputed food industry players who can provide good quality foods besides taking the responsibility of safety to the traveling public. A government service can never be expected to be of class as proved by the flopping of several hotels under the tourism ministry during the last few years and junking of many food processing units being run by the States. When will the GOI learn the bitter truth that "running a business is none of the business" of any government? Why not take a lesson from past failures and think differently for the sake of millions of people who are forced to travel by trains under the IR due to many reasons to make the travel at least enjoyable gastronomically!

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

FOOD PROBLEMS OF THE INDIAN RAILWAYS-FINDING A SCAPE GOAT?

The catering in Indian trains has been an issue that was being debated since time immemorial and if some of the officials of Railway Board are to be believed, the foods offered in some of the important trains are of world quality! The responsibility of railway catering was passed on the IRCTC, a specialized arm of the Indian Railways (IR) with the fond hope that there would be marked improvements in service because of the professional background of the catering personnel deployed by this agency. Unfortunately for various reasons IR was not able to satisfy the traveling public with complaints piling up day after day from the dissatisfied customers. Considering that not even 10% of the affected customers choose to file an official complaint the grouse against food quality must be almost universal which needs to be addressed by IR. It is against this context that IR decided to divest IRCTC of the catering responsibility recently.

"The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) was squarely blamed by the Ministry of Railways for all the muddle created in the catering services at the railway stations and the trains pushing the railways to go in for a fresh catering policy. The move was initiated as the criticism on the food quality provided in the trains becoming huge and the lobbying for acquiring the catering. The Chairman of the Railway Board, Vivek Sahai, said that the railways would ensure availability of good food with lesser rates and better quality for its travellers with the profitability not being the criteria as per the new policy. IRCTC was formed under the leadership of Mamta Banerjee when she became the minister for railways for the first time and the board member of the railways as the chairman making him cautious to defend the new policy. He further said that the IRCTC did not take any suitable actions for the ever increasing complaints about the food quality. Though the responsibility for the food quality served by the railways lied with the IRCTC, the railways were being held responsible which led to the board itself taking in charge of the catering services. He also added that the failure of the present policy makes the introduction of a fresh policy for catering services all the more necessary. Mr Sahai said that the IRCTC supplied sub standard food at the stations and on the trains as it could not supervise the work efficiently. Under the new policy, the Zonal railways would be made responsible for the food quality and supervision. Due to this move, IRCTC would be left with only i-ticket and e-ticket business and also the internal mineral water operations, Rail-Neer and had to forego the catering business valued at Rs 400 crore".

It is not clear as to how the bureaucratic zonal railway officials would be able to a better job than the experienced IRCTC. The typical knee-jerk response of the present railway regime is fraught with great risks and the food "fiasco" is going to be more serious in the coming days. It is not clear whether various zonal railways are going to create specialized teams in each zone and how coordination is going to be achieved. At least now there is whipping boy to take the responsibility for mishaps and inferior quality of service and the traveling public going to be much worse than to day under the new dispensation. IR must not yield to such "political" skulduggery to buy temporary peace with its millions of clientele spanning the country.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

IR'S "AIR-CONDITIONED" FOOD-THE NEW AVATAR

Indian Railways (IR) is again in the news recently regarding its "plans" for improving the quality of rail food served in important trains. Ever since the new regime assumed power in Delhi, rail food has been the subject matter of several press releases, statements by officials, press conferences etc conveying an impression that serving good quality food with safety at reasonable price is the top priority of IR. Scratching at the surface of a deep rooted problem like serving decent food, is not going to bear fruit unless the root cause of this malady is understood by the Railway Board. Look at the statement from this organization "identifying" the reason for bad quality of food in "some" trains

"Sources said Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation, which handles the arrangement of pantry cars in over 400 trains including Rajdhanis and Shatabdis, had received several complaints about lack of cleanliness and substandard fare available during the journey. In order to probe into the matter, the corporation carried out a survey, according to which pantries in 18% trains were in a miserable condition. Keeping the findings in mind, the officials proposed to the railway board for adding AC pantries in trains". An official said "the boilers in normal pantry cars affect the quality of food stored there. Moreover, cleanliness was not up to mark. Therefore, we've decided to attached the new AC cars.''

In what way AC pantry car will improve the quality of food served is some thing difficult to understand when the food is of indifferent quality during preparation itself. It is true that bacterial proliferation and chemical spoilage is retarded at lower temperatures but no measure can improve the eating quality of a bad food. Unless IR goes in for a PPP model with food industry and introduce hygienically processed "heat and serve"foods with high stability and long life, it is unlikely that rail passengers will ever be able to lay their hands on a clean and safe food.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com