Indian Railways has become 150 years old. Indian Railways(IR) are the largest rail network in Asia and the world’s second largest under one management. Indian Railways is an Indian state-owned enterprise, owned and operated by the Government of India through the Ministry of Railways. It is one of the world's largest railway networks comprising 115,000 km of track over a route of 65,000 km and 7,500 stations.(1) It employs more than 1.4 million employees, while carrying over 30 million passengers and 2.8 million tons of freight daily. In 2011–2012 Indian Railways had revenues of 1119848.9 million (US$17 billion) which consists of 696759.7 million (US$11 billion) from freight and 286455.2 million (US$4.4 billion) from passengers tickets. Trains are classified as pantry car/non-pantry car, trains with pantry cars are listed as P in Trains at a Glance. Meals are included in the fare on Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Duronto trains, while Indian Railways catering staff come around to collects orders an hour or two before mealtimes. Catering services received a lot of opposition from passengers for its quality of bad food provided on passenger trains. The railways received about 2,000 complaints on deficiencies in onboard food and about 600 on poor water supply in 2010.(2) In an initiative to ensure public satisfaction, railway authorities have decided to start registering passengers' complaints online. Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) would now take online opinions of commuters with regard to food quality. It also introduced a complaint line. The number is 1800-111-139, and passengers can call it to lodge complaints or offer suggestions about the catering service on the rail network. (3) In response to several complaints against bad quality food being served in trains as well as that available at vendor stalls, railway authorities are taking strict measures. Apparently, complaints and suggestions will be acted upon immediately, and the contract of the caterer can be terminated if the complaint is found to be justified enough.(4)

1. ANAG THE DIGITAL
FIRM
December 21, 2013
Monzer AL-Shaikh Warak
Under supervision of Dr. Kanishka Bedi
Quality of food served in Indian
Railway trains
FINAL EXAM
Supply Chain Management

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Introduction
Indian Railways has become 150 years old. Indian Railways(IR) are the largest rail network in Asia and
the world’s second largest under one management. Indian Railways is an Indian state-owned enterprise,
owned and operated by the Government of India through the Ministry of Railways. It is one of the world's
largest railway networks comprising 115,000 km of track over a route of 65,000 km and 7,500 stations.(1) It
employs more than 1.4 million employees, while carrying over 30
million passengers and 2.8 million tons of freight daily.
In 2011–2012 Indian Railways had revenues of 1119848.9 million
(US$17 billion) which consists of 696759.7 million (US$11 billion)
from freight and 286455.2 million (US$4.4 billion) from passengers
tickets.
Trains are classified as pantry car/non-pantry car, trains with pantry
cars are listed as P in Trains at a Glance. Meals are included in the fare
on Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Duronto trains, while Indian Railways
catering staff come around to collects orders an hour or two before
mealtimes.
Catering services received a lot of opposition from passengers
for its quality of bad food provided on passenger trains.
The railways received about 2,000 complaints on deficiencies in onboard food and about 600 on poor water
supply in 2010.(2)
In an initiative to ensure public satisfaction, railway authorities have decided to start registering passengers'
complaints online. Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) would now take online
opinions of commuters with regard to food quality.
It also introduced a complaint line. The number is 1800-111-139, and passengers can call it to lodge
complaints or offer suggestions about the catering service on the rail network. (3)
In response to several complaints against bad quality food being served in trains as well as that available at
vendor stalls, railway authorities are taking strict measures.
Apparently, complaints and suggestions will be acted upon immediately, and the contract of the caterer can
be terminated if the complaint is found to be justified enough.(4)
1. Wikipedia: "Indian Railways", URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Railways#Food accessed at:22/12/2013
2. News:"Bad quality food served to travellers, admits Railways", India Today, September 6, 2011
3. News:"Food quality: IRCTC to take opinions online", The Times of India, Nov 2, 2009
4. Online Article: "Don't Want Indian Railways Food? Try These Food Delivery Services", By: Sharell Cook,
February 16, 2013
Image source: http://pnr-status.net/wp-
content/uploads/2013/10/indian-railways-news-logo.jpg

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Case analysis
Train Delays & Related Food Problems
One of the frequent and most recurring problem in the Indian railway system which is highly out of control
of the system is the effect of weather, natural calamity, terrain and the lack of co-ordination due to change
in the running of other trains on the same route. This problem manifests itself through food supply chain as
the timing of the stoppage of train gets disturbed. There is problem in forecasting as the schedule veers
from the regular planning with lot of uncertainty. The consequences are that all major stations that have
kept the stock for catering to the demand gets deviated with either stock outs or with excess food which
results in wastage.
This problem can be solved through a systematic study of the past data of the late running trains, a
systematic study of weather pattern, terrain and dependability of the running schedule on other trains. It can
help in better forecasting of the potential peak demands and the frequency.
Based on this analysis every station can have a little excess capacity which can be ramped up in a short
notice and also if you have to provide dinner now instead of lunch due to change in schedule then you can
have a standardized menu items for both lunch and dinner plus a flexible manufacturing system which can
provide for few items as differentiation. For breakfast there can be items which can be prepared in short
notice like cutlets for vegetarians, boiled eggs for non-vegetarian plus bread and tea. These items can be
sourced and scaled up quickly.
These things will demand a robust, just in time supply with proper internal communication and external
relationship with suppliers and proper sharing of data across different supply chain members.
Many customers say that they look for quality in the products they buy. The major problem in Indian
Railways catering is about the quality of food that served in the trains, in one of Indian Railway’s premier
trains, Shatabdi, running between Amritsar and New Delhi; passengers were served fungus-infected bread
with an expiry date. Another Shatabdi running between Ludhiana and Delhi faces similar problems, as the
food served by a contractor is often cold and unpalatable.
Many of customer complaints on more dangers matter related to food can be see over the internet.
Early this year, one customer discovered a rat had been cooked in his son's meal (5), a series of inspections
carried on the behest of the Railway Board in February 2013 confirmed that bugs and cockroaches were
found in the food served in several trains including the prestigious ones. Similar inspections were carried
out on Shramjivi Express where the report says that water used for washing coaches was being used for
cooking. (6)|
In Aug19 2013, 30 passengers taken ill after having food on train.(7)
In 2012 there was 1279 complaints were received about sub-standard food, 115 complaints were registered
for lack of hygienic conditions in Rajdhani. (8)
Above problems enforced the customers to stop eating railways
food.
In the context of this food crisis, there is competitors exploit the
dissatisfaction of passengers and lunched called " Mera Food
Choice " it is working for basically making tie up and chain link
and does becoming platform between consumer/food lovers and
veg food providers.
Mera Food Choice now has 253 Outlets over 162 stations and
delivering Fresh food in over 6029 trains.
Customer can easily enter Mera Food Choice website and register with their PNR (Passenger Name

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Record) or the details of the trip, and the passenger will find their meal ready at the station
(http://merafoodchoice.com).
YatraChef (http://yatrachef.com) also is other such effort by few youngsters to offer the passengers a
good and fresh food at seats during train journey.
Back to the topic It seems that the problem because the poor co-ordination, shortage in shared informations
that happen between the Supply Chain Partners.
The bullwhip effect is clear in this situation; if the mistake of delays happened at the first partner of the
chain that will effect on the entire chain!
If we supposed that the vendors, manufactures and retailer (food preparer) were worked as the plan and the
delay happened in train trip, the customer in result will be effected and will receive a low quality food.
There is lack of information about food preference of passengers; quantity required often falls short of that
needed
There is a few other bad customers experience worldwide in bad quality food in railways such as Britain's
trains (9) and Pakistan Railways (10)
The decision of the Railways Minister in 2010 to transfer food catering on trains from IRCTC
to Indian Railways Hasty decision because there a lot of non-related activities has been added the
railways which is lead at the end dispersion in the efforts.
Udit Misra mentioned in his article:" Rakesh Tandon: Steering the Resurgence of IRCTC" that "
The professed rationale behind these measures was that IRCTC had not lived up to expectations. But
observers and even railway ministry insiders felt this was a case of throwing the baby with the bath water.
Steps could have been taken to help improve IRCTC’s delivery." (11)
5. News:" Railways serves ‘rat biryani’ to Gujarati pilgrims", The Times of India, Jan 30, 2013
6. News:"Cockroaches, bugs in food: Railways admits serious lapses in catering", CNN-IBN, Apr 12, 2013
7. News:"30 taken ill after having food on train", Deccan chronicle, Aug 19th 2013

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Outsource the food service
Since the core business of Indian Railways is transportation and the food service is non main
processes it could be better to outsourcing the food service to external specialized food
contractor. When the Outsourcing is done the company will to save money, improve quality,
or free the resources for other core competencies activities.
Suggested solutions
Below the recommendations, I propose to improve the current catering facilities in Indian Railways based
on what I learned in Supply Chain Management subject and my technical experience:
1- Indian Railway should improve quality at every level of the organization; it should perform Total
Quality Management (TQM).
2- The definition of quality should depends on the role of the passengers defining it.
3- It must significantly focusing of supply chain management is ensuring that food quality to meets
customer requirements. The organizational functions of procurement and catering, especially,
which are directly responsible for food services, have a critical impact on food quality.
4- One idea to collect the customer (passenger requirements) is throw online survey system, by
carefully creating question and send it to their customers.
5- Then IRCTC must address the following two issues:
a. Product design quality: This involves making sure the product meets the requirements of
the passengers.
b. Process quality: This deals with designing a process to produce error-free products.
This includes focusing on food materials (vegetables, rice, meat etc...), food preparer's
workers, Cooking equipment, and every other aspect of the operation to make sure it
functions the way it is supposed to.
6- IRCTC switched between different foods contractors, thus they should narrow their supplier base to
improve relations with suppliers as well as quality of the supplies.
The emphasis is on having fewer suppliers who are reliable and who provide material of superior
quality. This also calls for a change in the relationship of an organization with its suppliers. TQM
advocates for greater participation of and involvement in the organization by suppliers. The
traditional response would be to increase supplier base to take care of emergencies and include
stringent penalty measures.
7- When local purchases are made, they are mostly on ad-hoc basis through a certain degree of
discretion of the officer in-charge which sometimes have sub- standard quality levels and high
uncertainty due to erratic nature of demand. To develop a long term relationship and having a
dedicated set of quality local purchases there should be 20% allocation of the total demand to local
suppliers as a fixed amount of purchases and with a capability to supply the additional variable
component at the same quality and price. That will be Advantageous to both IRCTC and the
suppliers .
8. News:"1394 complaints against food quality served in trains", The Economic Times, Aug 22th 2013
9. News:"Food to rail against", The Guardian, July 11 2011
10. News:"Vendors sell poor quality food at high price at railway stations", One Pakistan, Dec 22th 2012
11. Magazine :"Rakesh Tandon: Steering the Resurgence of IRCTC",By:Udit Misra, ForbesIndia magazine,Oct 24,
2013

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8- While a contractor/supplier is no longer just a vendor, he is an important partner to the
organization. Thus, IRCTC should share information about their plans and future projections with
the contractors and lays emphasis on total cost of owning and operating the unit.
9- Collaboration among several companies aiming to establish product design, product
innovation, the creation of new products and inform each other to determine the forecasting
(forecasting) and replenishment.
Regarding IT proposed solutions:
 IR should focus on a long-term strategy of building relationships is much more profitable than a
short-term focus on the number of sales transactions., it should enhance the sales order cycle and
customer relationship management (CRM)
 The existence of CRM system will help the management to expect the required row of material
based on the passenger's behaviors and historical orders.
 Create meal booking system integrated with their material Resource planning system to allow
passengers choosing their meal from a list of items and order it in advance via telephone, SMS and
web.(To make the offer attractive, discounts for such bookings may be provided.
Knowing such information would help in reducing shortage and wastage and also guarantee food to
the passengers who have availed the option of pre booking of food
 Food material management when it planning for purchase the raw materials should take in account
the variety of their passengers' cultures among the geographic areas. The food habits and
preferences is different from state to state.
For example: The people of Southeastern coast of India like Andhra Pradesh are prefer the rice in
their meal while the people of western region of India like Maharashtra prefer foods that made from
the wheat.
To perform that it would be a great
idea to add "Preferable meal type"
field in website registration form,
or at least the "family origin state"
field " would be benefits if it
available in the registration form.
Most railways and airways creating
their row material procurement pan
based on passenger preference at
each trip.
 Regarding the in train sales order
process; Instead of cooking inside
the train I suggest to be at the
stations as long as allowing the
railway steward to place the
passenger's orders through a handle
device that linked to the ERP systems at main Indian railway servers.
Once the order placed through that devices the information detail including required items, train,
passenger seat number and GPS location will be sent to the nearest station to prepare that meal
(taking in account the expected preparing time). In this case when the train arrived to that station,
the meals will be ready and in fresh status.
By this way, the huge food wastage will be solved because of a good space and healthy
environment to store and prepare the foods and delivery it in a fresh status.
Snapshot Source: the Passenger registration form
https://www.irctc.co.in/cgi-bin/bv60.dll/irctc/services/register.do?click=true

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 Deploying an effective feedback management system that would warn/punish/ put a penalty on the
catering service providers in case the number of complaints against them rises above a particular
threshold.
A strong feedback analysis system would help the people restore their faith in the railways.
 Provision of a smart card or a railway card to facilitate the booking of tickets and Catering
Services.

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References list
External references
 Wikipedia: "Indian Railways", URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Railways#Food accessed
at:22/12/2013
 News:"Bad quality food served to travellers, admits Railways", India Today, September 6, 2011
 News:"Food quality: IRCTC to take opinions online", The Times of India, Nov 2, 2009
 Online Article: "Don't Want Indian Railways Food? Try These Food Delivery Services", By:
Sharell Cook, February 16, 2013
 News:" Railways serves ‘rat biryani’ to Gujarati pilgrims", The Times of India, Jan 30, 2013
 News:"Cockroaches, bugs in food: Railways admits serious lapses in catering", CNN-IBN, Apr 12,
2013
 News:"30 taken ill after having food on train", Deccan chronicle, Aug 19th 2013
 News:"1394 complaints against food quality served in trains", The Economic Times, Aug 22th
2013
 News:"Food to rail against", The Guardian, July 11 2011
 News:"Vendors sell poor quality food at high price at railway stations", One Pakistan, Dec 22th
2012
 Magazine :"Rakesh Tandon: Steering the Resurgence of IRCTC",By:Udit Misra, ForbesIndia
Magazine,Oct 24, 2013
 Report: "How to improve catering services in Indian railways", By: Pranay Patil, Rakshak
Foundation, JULY 2012
Subject references:
 Segment 5: Procurement and Manufacturing, The Quality Movement
 Segment 7: Managing the Supply Chain, Supply Chain Co-ordination Problems, The Bullwhip
Effect.
 Segment 5: Procurement and Manufacturing
 Segment 7: Managing the Supply Chain, Supply Chain Co-ordination Problems Impact of Poor Co-
ordination
 Segment 3: Logistics, The Interface of Logistics with Other Functions
 Segment 6: Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Supply Chain Information Systems Design