The Indian Railways have tightened safety rules in the operation of private trains/coaches by issuing fresh guidelines for catering services and security checks.
While the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has been assigned the task of providing food to passengers in private trains/coaches booked on Full Tariff Rate (FTR), security and railway staff would conduct pre-departure check to prevent carriage inflammable items such as gas cylinders. The move is to prevent and discourage passengers from carrying gas or other fuel stoves for cooking on trains.
The decision comes a month after a private coach transporting pilgrims went up in flames in Madurai leaving nine passengers dead and a few others injured. Preliminary investigation revealed that a gas cylinder exploded when a passenger tried making coffee in the coach that was detached from a regular express train and moved to the yard side during the wee hours of August 26, 2023.
According to official sources, the Railway Board has written to the Managing Director, IRCTC, and Principal Chief Commercial Managers of all Zonal Railways informing about a decision that catering facilities in all private trains/coaches would be arranged by the IRCTC.
Flameless cooking
In cases where a full train with a pantry car is taken, the booking party could either order food through IRCTC or utilise the catering facilities in the pantry strictly complying with the rules and regulations of the railways. In such trains, pantries with flameless cooking facilities would only be provided. Where flameless pantry cars were not available, the catering services would have to be mandatorily booked through IRCTC, the sources said.
The Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) and IRCTC were told to develop an option in the FTR booking module to upload passenger manifest 24 hours before the scheduled departure of the train, the sources said.
The travel agent or booking party would have to ensure that boarding and deboarding of passengers is done as per the tour programme already submitted to ensure platform facility. At halts en-route for operational purposes, railways would ensure provision of platform or siding to enable boarding/de-boarding of passengers or stabling the coach.
Senior railway and IRCTC officers were directed to check compliance of the new guidelines that would come into immediate effect, the sources added.
