Fulfilling one of the prominent demands of the region in recent times, the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) finally opened its area office near the enquiry counter of the Ranchi Railway Station on Tuesday.
The office is expected to not only streamline and manage catering in trains originating from Ranchi and Hatia stations, but also to tap largely unexplored opportunities in tourism sector in and from the State.
The office will provide tourists with booking services for local tours up to water-falls, temples and sanctuaries in the State, and also international tour packages to Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Dubai and other destinations which are already available through IRCTC’s web portal.
Tourists can also book customized tour packages of one of the costliest and most luxurious trains in the world like Maharaja Express.
IRCTC GGM Debashish Chandra said, on the occasion, that the office would be of great help to local tourists who shall get tailor-made solutions of their tour-requirements for local, national and international destinations. “The office will cater to all services offline, which could be availed online through IRCTC website. This office will be more helpful to those tourists who want mixed kind of services in tourism, other than what our portal is offering,” said Chandra after inaugurating the office where DRM VK Gupta, ADRM Vijay Kumar and ADRM-2 AS Yadav, Senior DCM Neeraj Kumar and others were also present.He added that the IRCTC was promoting many plans of Jharkhand government and it would talk to the department of tourism also in case they needed the organisation to partner with their plans.
“We are planning to promote local tourism like Falls’ visit, temples visit and other extremely pleasant sites in the State through our area office. We are also planning to launch toy-type trains with glass body coaches so that tourists can enjoy sceneries along with small stretches like Tata-Ranchi, Ranchi-Muri and many other beautiful places,” said Chandra.
More importantly, IRCTC Area office which is first in the State, will take care of catering services in trains originating from Ranchi and Hatia stations, including Rajdhani Express, which remains one of the most challenging tasks for the Indian Railways arm to deal with so far. Gupta said that the issue will be sorted out once IRCTC starts its proposed base kitchen near Ranchi Railway Station. He admitted that the food quality in many trains remained an area of concern, and said that things would turn better once many of the proposals pending with the Railway Board are cleared and executed in another six months.