The railways' catering arm IRCTC has received more than 5,000 complaints related to the quality of food in trains in the past seven months, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Wednesday.
Between April 1, 2022, and October 31, 2022, the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation received a total of 5,869 complaints about food quality in trains, the Minister informed Lok Sabha.
"On receipt of any complaint on food quality, appropriate action, including a penalty, is taken against the service provider of IRCTC.
"It is the continuous endeavor of Indian Railways to provide good quality and hygienic food to passengers as per norms and standards prescribed by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI)," the minister said.
The Optional Catering Service has been introduced in all premium trains (Rajdhani, Shatabdi, Duronto, Gatiman, Tejas, Vande Bharat) with effect from September 2019. Passengers can opt out of the pre-paid catering facilities while booking tickets, he said.
The Minister also said, IRCTC's revenue "reduced drastically" by almost 64 per cent during 2020-21 as compared to 2019-20 due to Covid-related travel restrictions. After the situation normalized, the revenue increased gradually.
The company's market capitalization has, however, increased to Rs 61,976 crore as on March 31, 2022, from Rs 11,644 crore since its listing (14th October 2019)," he said.
The Minister said the estimated number of rail passengers who have used IRCTC for booking train tickets during 2019-2020 is 5,229 lakh, followed by 3,052 lakh in 2020-21, and 7,343 lakh in 2021-22.
In the current fiscal, till October 31, 4,607 lakh passengers have booked tickets through IRCTC, he said.
(Published 14 December 2022, 16:08 IST)
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