Soon home cooked food by self help groups would be available for train travelers

Food available on trains has always been a sore point of the Indian Railways and the new Railway Minister is leaving no stone unturned to offer the best available food service to train travelers. After e-catering, he has now decided to rope in self-help groups to serve home coked food to train travelers. A pilot project has been launched in the Konkan region of Maharashtra for supply of local cuisine by SHGs to train travelers.
This has been reported in ibnlive.com dated 14 April 2016.

As per the arrangement, two stations in the Konkan region - Kudal and Sawantwadi - have been identified for the pilot project.
It seems the Indian Railways have entered into a partnership with the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) to facilitate SHGs of farmers to supply local meals to train passengers. For this, two stations in the Konkan region - Kudal and Sawantwadi - have been identified for the pilot project.
In order to avail of this facility, passengers will have to order the meal online through IRCTC website during their journey. A similar initiative has been launched in Kerala also and plans are there are plans to gradually extend it to other stations and cover the whole country.
The pilot project is a part of the railway budget 2016-17 that had been announced by Minister Suresh Prabhu to explore the possibility of giving the choice of local cuisine to passengers. Indian Railways has already launched the e-catering facility that offers options to the passengers to book their meals online instead of depending on food supplied by contractors or pantry cars.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org

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Pantry cars being phased out on Indian Railways

Pantry cars that used to be an integral part of long distance trains in India are on their way out because of the push towards e-catering that is being introduced by the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC). Therefore, the Indian Railways has begun to withdraw pantry cars from long-distance trains.
However, this may not go down too well with passengers just yet because many trains from which pantry car services have been withdrawn pass through stations that do not cater to e-catering services during breakfast, lunch or dinner time. Obviously, passengers traveling in such trains would either have to carry their food or depend on unscrupulous private caterers for their meals.
This has been reported in timesofindia.indiatimes.com dated 3 November 2015.

Examples are the Howrah-Dehradun Upasana Express and the Howrah-Haridwar Kumbha Express.
Eastern Railway have announced that pantry cars on these trains will be discontinued from November and have provided a solution of sorts.
Both these trains originate from Howrah at 1 pm so lunch is not an issue on the day the journey starts. Passengers can either reach the station after an early lunch or order from Howrah that has e-catering services. Evening snacks can be picked up at Asansol and dinner at Patna as both stations have e-catering facilities.
however, passengers would face problems next afternoon with lunch because, there are no stations between Lucknow Charbagh and Haridwar or Dehradun that has e-catering facilities.
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