The Indian Railways is planning to stop serving food in the trains as well as discontinue providing bedsheets and pillows to the passengers if they travel on special trains due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The system will be adopted under the ‘new normal’.
As per sources quoted by Zee News, the Ministry of Railways is preparing to remove the pantry car in about 300 trains and install third AC coaches in place of it.
A pantry car is a special coach in a train where food is prepared for the passengers and during the journey, passengers are provided food from this pantry car.
For catering, Railways is preparing IRCTC operated base kitchens near major stations through which food will be made available in these trains. Not only this, passengers will be given the option to order e-catering or online food on the train.
Through this step, Railways wants to achieve two goals simultaneously – first is to increase the income through third AC coach and second is to extend e-catering.
The sources said that Railways wants to complete this step silently to avoid any controversies.
Meanwhile, Railways has reviewed its security, crowd management and enforcement of COVID-19 protocol, as footfalls have started increasing ahead of the festive season.
The railway stations and trains will witness a manifold increase in footfall during the upcoming festive season and to face the challenges posed by increased footfall effectively, especially during the COVID-19 outbreak, Chairman-cum-CEO/Railway Board, Member (Operations and Business Development) and DG/RPF interacted with officers of the field formation at zonal and divisional levels through a video conference,” a statement from the Ministry of Railways read.
According to them, the field formations were asked to launch an intensive awareness campaign among the travelling passengers regarding the guidelines issued by Railway administration to prevent the spread of coronavirus in railway stations and trains.
Source: dnaindia.com