The Hindu : New Delhi News : Railways to improve menu for passengers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Aug 10, 2006

New Delhi

New Delhi

Railways to improve menu for passengers

Sandeep Joshi

NEW DELHI: After introducing cyclic menu on its prestigious Rajdhani and Shatabdi Express trains from August 1 giving its passengers a new menu for each day of the week, the Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited (IRCTC) is now working towards giving passengers of other trains too an option to choose from a variety of cuisine and menu during their journey.

IRCTC has roped in the Institute of Hotel Management Catering and Nutrition, India's top hotel management institute situated at the Pusa Complex here, to design cost effective "a la carte menu" so that instead of getting a regular meal onboard, passengers can choose from a variety of food items.

Informing that in "a la carte menu", rather than paying a fixed price for a complete meal, a customer gets to choose from different meals, IRCTC's Group General Manager (Operations) Vinod Asthana said the challenge is to make menu cost-effective as "a la carte menu" is generally costly. "Our passengers are very cost sensitive, so the Institute has been asked to prepare a menu including those food items for which they do not have to pay more. We will ensure that passengers get a variety of food at the same cost that they presently pay for a regular meal," said Mr. Asthana, adding that the menu will mainly contain items like "pav-bhaji", "chole-bhature", "rajma-chawal", a variety of "dosas", "uttapams", "paranthas" and burgers.

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