Visakhapatnam: Having the luxury of having food of own choice, be it pizza or burger, during train journey is no more a challenge now due to the progress in the online food order facilities through IRCTC and other service providers. With the railway commuters fast catching up with the online food order facility giving options of private caterers too, the business scope for the local food restaurants and caters have also widened. The online service has gained credibility with the intervention of IRCTC and thorough screening procedure.
In its first phase of pilot project from last October, IRCTC is taking orders from all trains passing through 45 specified railway stations, including nine in the east zone, namely Visakhapatnam, Howrah, Sealdah, Guwahati, New Jalpaiguri, Patna, Bhubaneswar, Kharagpur and Mughalsarai. According to an IRCTC official, the corporation has tied up with four vendors from Visakhapatnam—Dominos, KFC, Sai Aahar and Raghvendra Catering.
Besides other online websites in this segment, Railrestro and TravelZaika have also partnered with some hotels. The local caterers opine that the way of doing business has largely changed due to the online orders, especially from railway commuters. Dominos food chain, Visakhapatnam manager Rishav said from December onwards they had been receiving good orders, approximately 75 a month.
However, he expressed his displeasure over the complicated order cancellation process by IRCTC. KFC staff, however, refused to reveal the sales details citing their company policy. “The concept is really nice and there is a great future in this segment as lakhs of people travel every day. Now, there is no boundary for doing business,” said Sai Aahar owner, Sudhir.
