IRCTC pilot e-catering project

October 20, 2015 Hot from the Oven Valli Sarvani No comments

A new pilot project has been launched by the Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC).

It is a ‘station-based e-catering’ service through which passengers can order meals as per their preference. The ordered food will be delivered at stations from popular private caterers.

The first phase of the project is only available to all trains passing through 45 specified railway stations.

The 45 stations include nine in the east zone, which are Howrah, Sealdah, Guwahati, New Jalpaiguri, Kharagpur, Patna, Bhubaneswar, Visakhapatnam, and Mughalsarai have been named.

The remaining stations covered are: New Delhi, Kanpur Central, Allahabad, Varanasi, Chennai Madurai, Lucknow, Mumbai Central, Amritsar, Delhi, Secunderabad, Vijayawada, Tirupati, Chennai Egmore, Ernakulam, Bangalore city, Thiruvananthapuram Central, Chandigarh, Anand Vihar, Gorakhpur, Hazrat Nizamuddin, Jaipur, Bilaspur, Ludhiana, Kozhikode, Thrisur, Yasvantpur, Nagpur, Pune, Agra Cantt, Bhopal, Ahmedabad, Surat , Gwalior, Vadodara, and Jhansi.

IRCTC group general manager of East zone, Debashi Chandra said that Station-based e-catering will be available only for stations and not on moving trains. Passengers can use the service to order meals online from the website www.ecatering.irctc.co.in or they can call the number 0120-2383892-99/1800-1034-139 (toll free). They can also use SMS feature by sending “Meal” to 139 along with details of PNR and seat number. The meals will be delivered at their berth.

The service will also provide food from famous food chains like KFC, McDonald’s, Only Alibaba, Switz Foods, Haldiram, Bikanerwala, Dominos, Sagar Ratna, Nirualas, Pizza Hut along with food from IRCTC-managed food plazas and fast food units. As a result the passengers can get a lot of variety in menu.The service also gives choice to passengers regarding payment. They can pay online or they can pay cash on delivery upon receiving meals. This helps passengers who are not carrying cash around.

Image Credit: Andrew Thomas from Shrewsbury, UK / CC BY-SA 2.0