Indian Railways introduces the policy of mandatory food bills in trains in order to prevent overcharging

In a move to prevent train food caterers from overcharging passengers for food, the Indian Railways has decided to adopt a strict policy of “if no bill, your food is free.”

The decision has been taken by Railway Minister Piyush Mishra to ensure that railway passengers start asking for bills for the food that they buy on their respective journeys, thus ensuring that they are not overcharged.
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Just like in eateries inside malls and movie theatres, the trains will now have a message displayed urging passengers to ask for the food bill.

This move has come after the Indian Railways received the maximum number of passenger complaints regarding the overcharging of the food in trains, especially in mail and express trains wherein the cost of the food is not included in the fare of the train ticket. In fact, there were as many as 7,000 complaints regarding the same between the months of April and October last year.

While this food bill policy will be applicable in all trains from March 31 this year, the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has already started publicising this message through their ticket booking website.

In fact, IRCTC has also started deploying officials who would ensure that there is no form of overcharging involved in any of the transactions, even if it is something as simple as a cup of tea ordered by the passenger.
“We have readied 120 officials to man the trains and in some time we are going to put in place more people on inspection duty to gradually man every train during food service time. They will ensure proper service and billing,” said M P Mall, Chairman and Managing Director, IRCTC.

Apart from the food bill related policy, Goyal has also given out strict instructions that license of those food vendors will be cancelled who sell food items without prices printed on them.