The base kitchen at Rajendra Nagar Terminal. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey
The Railway Board has decided to set up four base kitchens in its East Central Zone so that passengers on trains without pantry cars can enjoy hearty and quality meals.
The kitchens would be set up at Patna Junction,Samastipur, Barauni and Mughalsarai railway stations. The work is expected to take around six months. It takes around Rs 30 lakh to set up one base kitchen and the railway board will spend Rs 1.2 core for the East Central Railway (ECR) zone.
At present, ECR has two base kitchens. One of them is at Patna's Rajendra Nagar Terminaland the other in Gaya. At least 100 trains pass through the ECR zone but several of them, including the Patna-Jansadharan Express and the Bhagalpur Garib Rath Express, don't have pantry cars. So, these base kitchens supply meals to the important trains passing through the zone without pantry cars.
Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited (IRCTC) has been assigned the work to set up the kitchens at the four stations. One base kitchen would provide food to at least 20 trains.
A senior IRCTC official said: 'It would take at least six months to construct the base kitchens at Patna, Samastipur, Barauni and Mughalsarai railway stations.'
The railways will provide land near the stations for the base kitchens.
Quality food on trains has been an issue for quite some time now. Passengers have repeatedly complained of being served stale and contaminated meal on running trains.
The IRCTC official added: 'The main motive behind setting up more base kitchens is to do away with pantry cars. The Railway Board is planning to shut down the pantry cars because they are risky too. There are many examples of pantry cars catching fire.'
Indian Railways meanwhile launched the e-catering facility on Friday through which passengers can book meals over the Internet and text messages. The service has been launched for 50 trains, including three originating from Bihar - Katihar-Amritsar Express (15707), Jaynagar-Anand Vihar Garib Rath (12569) and Bhagalpur-Anand Vihar Garib Rath (22405).
