Railway passengers to experience fine dining

Northern railways have planned to establish two base kitchens in Delhi and to add a new flavor to their recipes, they are going to hire chefs from the famous hotel management institutes of India.

The base kitchens will come up at the New Delhi and Anand Vihar railway stations. And the railways claim that the state-of-art kitchens will be fully automatic and will give the food provided by airlines a run for its money.

"There were complaints that the food provided in trains doesn't taste well and the hygiene standards are not up to the mark. With our new base kitchens we'll be providing the best of the taste to passengers with the highest standards of hygiene," said SK Budhalakoti, GM, northern railways.

A double-storey kitchen at the Ajmeri gate side of the New Delhi station will come up in six months. The kitchen will prepare food for 50,000 passengers and will have separate pre-cooking, washing, cooking, packaging and dispatching department. There will be separate sections for vegetarian and non-vegetarian food in the base kitchen, he added.

"Chefs and other staff for the kitchen will be hired from professional hotel management schools and the serving contract in the trains will be given to private parties," said SK Sharma, Chief PRO, northern railways. Presently, private contractors run railway base kitchens.

Another railway base kitchen will come up at Anand Vihar railway station with a capacity to prepare food for 15,000 passengers.