Following directions from the Ministry of Railways after the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India report related to bad quality of food in trains, special food inspecting campaign has been launched by Ranchi Rail Division from July 26 to August 15 to bring some improvement in quality of food served to the passengers. Senior Divisional Commercial Manager of Ranchi Rail Division Neeraj Kumar said that several caterers and vendors were warned while fines were imposed on some of them during inspections conducted by top officials of Ranchi Rail Division.
“As monitoring of all the caterers operating in the Division could not be done on daily basis, we are trying to inspect the mobile kitchens in trains, establishments of Railways and IRCTC along with other recognized vendors on stations to improve the quality of foods served to the passenger,” said Kumar. Though it is presently being conducted only for 15 days, such inspections will also be done from time to time in future also, he added.
“Such inspections will definitely help in minimizing the problems of the passengers related to catering services in the trains in future. Initially, they are being warned to improve themselves while some of them have also been imposed fine for not adhering to the prescribed norms,” said the Senior DCM.
The DCM further said that their only objective was to minimize the complaints of passengers related to taste, quality, packaged drinking water, hygiene, overcharging.
“At this stage we are also trying to make the people serving food in trains aware about how to maintain hygiene and also about dos and don’ts while serving food to the passengers,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ranchi DRM VK Gupta along with ADRM Vijay Kumar recently inspected the base kitchen of Ranchi Rajdhani Express run by IRCTC during the campaign and warned the manager after he found lacunas in it. Samples of were also taken which will further be sent for examination to the laboratories.
The DRM directed the manager to repair broken tiles, ensure that they wear gloves and cap while cooking, use steel table instead of wooden ones etc. The DRM also asked the manger to maintain cleanliness at the place and said that railway officials will visit different places everyday and any kind of carelessness will not be tolerated.
ADRM Vijay Kumar, Sr DCM Neeraj Kumar, Deputy Chief Divisional Medical Officer TK Singhamahpatra, Additional Divisional Medical Officer Sanjeev Kumar along with others were present during the inspection.