"JAN AHAR"-ANOTHER "BRAINWAVE" FOR IR

Jan Ahar, which is the new name given by Indian Railways to the 50 restaurants being set up in some important stations, probably means people's food and obviously it is targeted at the railway passengers who have the time and inclination to spend some time in an eating place before boarding or after alighting from a train. According to what has been reported, these restaurants are designed to make eating a pleasure with a congenial environment, yellow colored serving tables with green chairs and uniform wearing servers. The prices for various preparations offered at these outlets have also been fixed. Considering that most of the railway restaurants presently serving the traveling public in various stations do not have any uniform standard, the new move may bring in certain transparency in food catering.

One of the fundamental questions that is difficult to answer is whether railway passengers travel to reach their destination or eat and enjoy good food. It is understandable that during long haul travels, access to food is important and most of the major trains have delivery service or pantry cars for meeting the needs of passengers. There are many ordinary trains where passengers travel in crowded coaches, some time even standing and probably the eateries in railway stations do serve a purpose but whether the proposed Jan Ahar outlets can meet their needs is doubtful. Availability of a couple of minutes for snacking or less than 15 minutes for meals during halts at certain stations, does not allow any passengers, especially those traveling without reservation, to relax and eat, with apprehension upper most in their minds that train may leave while eating. A quick grab is always preferred under such circumstances and what is expected is clean food of tolerable quality..

Lot has been said and written about the Food Plazas established in many stations involving private caterers and no one knows for sure whether any thing has gone wrong or the type of response from the passengers. Jan Ahar seems to be positioned to hit the food plazas because their business is going to be adversely affected. The flip-flop in policies with change of ministers at the helm, does not bring any laurels to any body and elbowing out private players cannot be justified after inviting them to set up shop earlier. Obviously Jan Ahar can serve foods cheaper because it is run by the IR and unlike the Food Plazas, it does not have to pay heavy royalty and other charges for the facilities within the railway property. The scrapping of private catering system in running trains is another example of a government agency reversing the PPP policy apparently without any logical reason. According to IR sources, these outlets will be "managed" by IR but food will be sourced from private contractors, whatever that means. It is not clear how IR can fix the range of prices for the foods served at Rs 10 to Rs 35, if outsourcing is going to be done. Since the first outlet is going to be launched soon, one has to see how far this idea is going to be useful to the passengers.

A woman being the Railway Minister, it may be more appropriate if women's cooperatives are formed to run these food centers and the example of Lijjat Papads shows what such organized bodies can achieve if motivated. Added bonus is that the food is prepared and served by women who are supposed to have better culinary talent. IR must realize that it can also serve the society through such programs. While the intention behind the project, viz, to serve better and cheaper food, is laudable, the management and logistical restraints may still "derail" the plans. Consumer can only hope that "Jan Ahar" does not become synonymous with "Pashu Ahar", during implementation and operation of the new proposal.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

FOOD ON THE RAILS-THE NEW 'MANTRA'

The "Duranto" Minister for Railways, in her recent budget speech, made the startling announcement that railway catering would be taken over from the private sector players, the noble objective being 'to upgrade' the quality and 'reduce' the cost of food served in railway stations and in all important trains. Intention may be noble because it dangles before the hapless commuters using the railways, the 'carrot' in the form of mouth watering foods at low cost. It is shocking because post-independent India has been a mute witness to the progressively declining standards of government controlled services reflecting the ground reality and no lesson seems to have been learnt from the past miserable experience for the citizens.

Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) as well as Department Catering of Indian Railways (IR) are involved in providing food services to the passengers at present to a limited extent, rest being outsourced to private contractors. According to IR, there are 10, 752 static catering units servicing 260 pairs of trains through pantry cars and train side vending units serve another 80 trains. While IRCTC has 1428 catering units, Catering Department of IR runs another 56 units. In contrast number of private catering units under different zones run into 3473 and another 5797 private units are under the IRCTC monitoring orbit. For serving running trains, base kitchens are set up in major cities from where the trains start or pass through during long journey. IRCTC has 4 base kitchens in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkatta and Patna. Private caterers have invested heavily in setting up about 100 base kitchens across the country to provide food service to more than 600 trains in a day. No doubt providing good, affordable and safe food is the responsibility of the IR and a rudimentary system of monitoring is supposed to be in place, though its efficiency or effectiveness is still to be felt by the traveling public.

If the new 'mantra' of in-house catering is to be implemented, IR will have to set up least 30-35 more base kitchens to serve all the Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains numbering 32 at present. According to IRCTC officials, even setting up a small kitchen would cost Rs 3 crore while it will be more than 3-4 times when it comes to establishing a large base kitchen with necessary facilities. The manpower needs to be expanded several fold and it is likely that once they are inducted into the railway catering service their tenure will become permanent. If the experiment of in-house catering fails for some reasons or the IR reverses the policy, these employees can be a permanent drain on the railway establishment. More appropriate would be to mechanize many of the preparations that could save manpower significantly. To day automated equipment are available for preparing many cuisines like chapathi, idli, dosa, poori, vada, bonda. bread and parotha which are the basic items on demand from the traveling public and base kitchens can be equipped with these machines for continuous mass production. Advanced packaging materials and packing machines must be used to make the preparations well protected and presentable.

A larger issue to be addressed is whether IR can provide better service to the passengers than that offered by the private players. In all likelihood, this is an Utopian dream. IR is used to make money from the catering contractors through heavy licensing fees and forcing them to pay exorbitant recurring royalties from their turn over. All know whatever has happened to the pompous decision of the previous minister in making use of earthen ware pots and cups compulsory for serving food and beverages in IR stations and trains! Solution to bettering the quality of food lies in making monitoring more stringent and deployment of a critical mass of technically experienced food technologists with well equipped safety assessment facilities to shoulder the responsibility. Probably IR can do a better job in promoting food industry in the country than MoFPI because of the vast captive clientèle it has and joining hands with some of the major industrial corporates by involving them in running the pantry car system may be of mutual benefit to all concerned, the passengers, IR and the industry.



V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/

RAIL AHAR, RAIL NEER, RAIL CHOOHA!

One is amused by the "grand plan" of the railways to provide 'good and safe' foods to their clients, the millions of passengers using the rail net work to go places. It does not dawn on the ministry that people use the services not out of love or admiration for them but due to no other options before them as railway travel happens to be the cheapest mode of transport in the country. No doubt Indian Railway (IR) is a mammoth enterprise connecting the country and in spite of the passenger unfriendly nature of the services, passengers show enormous patience and forbearance true to the Gandhian tradition. The latest 'service' is to set up toll free telephone numbers for the commuters to contact and make suggestions regarding foods that should be served in the trains. One positive outcome of this new proposal is that the railways implicitly admit that the food served can be improved. This is in sharp contrast to the earlier pompous attitude with senior officials looking after the catering who were very categorical in their assertion that "India Railways always serve the best food in the world"!

Coming to the new so called 'service', can there be a more ridiculous proposition than making suggestions for food improvements through telephone? Every one knows how difficult it is to access any public number in any government department or public utility office with the phone giving engaged tone in spite of calling repeatedly, either because some one is talking or the receiver being kept down deliberately. What can an average citizen expect by talking to an unknown operator with no knowledge of food about improving rail foods? If this is not sheer skullduggery, what else it is? All know what has happened to the earlier plan of the very same manthri to ban plastic cups and replace them with earthern ware cups which to day are only adorning the show cases of the caterers, since they found the idea impractical to implement on a scale warranted by the demand.

Now comes the latest plan to set up Food Plazas under PPP mode with private participation. Already 53 such plazas are claimed to be operating and this is sought to be expanded by adding another 52 to ensure availability of hygienic foods to customers as one of the objectives but more important to add to the burgeoning profits being recorded year after year. This had earned global attention and even a 'professorship' for the concerned 'manthriji' by adulating management students from some colleges. There is already 'rail neer', being manufactured by IR for travelling public and another two plants are scheduled to be set up. It does not make any sense why IR wants to set up new water plants when there are more than 1000 plants set up by the private sector with hardly 30% capacity utilization. If IR truly believes in the PPP concept, the best way would have been to use this idle capacity to meet its demand. The most troubling aspect of food plazas is the real repurcussions these restaurants will have on the hapless travelling public since the railway stations are invariably crowded all the time with the meager passenger facilities over stretched to maximum extent possible. Why does IR want to attract more crowds to the vicinity of these stations through food plazas? Probably IR may derail what ever little comforts being enjoyed by the passengers while earning profit has become its major objective .


Many travellers in IR trains must not have missed the rat nuisance even in air conditioned coaches and sleeping in such trains can be a disturbing thought. These rail 'choohas' are indeed smart with their fast movements and ability to grab foods under the very nose of the passengers! It does not cost much for the railways to clean up and fumigate the trains regularly after each trip to ensure that cockroaches and rats do not make these coaches their permanent abode. Probably IR may be doing it but what ever is being done is grossly inadequate. Most of the rail yards where racks are parked in between trips, can breed these vectors as litter and garbage mounts are created by indiscriminate dumping of refuse near these places. As long as food is eaten inside the train, it will attract these vectors and an efficient disinfestation team must be in place to preempt this problem. A better alternative is to include pantry cars with serving facilities in vestibuled trains, so that eating within the coaches can be avoided as much as possible. It is unfortunate that a plea by this blogger earlier to involve major food processors in providing pantry service in important trains, a truly PPP model, has fallen on deaf ears!

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/