IRCTC's course correction: Kerala food items on the menu after passengers complain

The IRCTC has rolled back the decision to exclude certain Kerala dishes from its menu in the state after receiving a number of complaints from passengers and after an MP wrote a letter to the Railway Minister regarding the same.

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IRCTC's course correction

Train passengers had expressed disappointment with the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) after multiple dishes on its menu had been replaced and the prices of the food at the Railways' Vegetarian Refreshment Room (VRR) were almost doubled. Many dishes from the South had also allegedly been replaced with dishes from the north.

IRCTC did acknowledge the demands of the passengers and replied to the same on Twitter. The official account of the organization said that "food items will be restored" food as per "local taste and regional preferences" will be brought back in a week as "snack meals".

Items such as egg curry, parotta, dosa, appam, puttu and kadala curry were off the list and so were snacks such as pazhampori, bhaji, illayada, kozhukatta, unniappam, neyyappam and sukhiyan. These snacks were replaced by 'more popular' snacks such as samosa, kachori, aloo bonda and stuffed pakoda. However, masala dosa, curd rice, sambhar rice had been kept on the menu. 

The price of certain items, such as vada, idli was increased by almost 100% as per the revised menu.

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Many citizens took to Twitter to express their displeasure, and Hibi Eden, a Member of Parliament (MP) from Ernakulam, Kerala also wrote a letter to Rail Minister Piyush Goyal, notifying him about the 'exclusion of Malayali dishes from the menu of IRCTC'. "Some dishes which are very important to Malayalees for breakfast such as appam, egg curry, porotta, dosa, chappathi, steam cake were excluded alongside snacks such as banana fry, baji ilayada, kozhukkatta, unniyappam, modakam...In short, through the changes in the menu, Malayalees are discriminated in trains and railway refreshment rooms by the food which is the right of every passenger. I would, therefore, request your goodself's urgent intervention on this matter and kindly look into this need and expedite the action in this regard positively."

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