While travelling by outstation trains, many of us opt for meals onboard. These may be provided by different vendors, depending on existing agreements between them and the railways. Recently, IRCTC (Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation) received criticism online when they were accused of overcharging passengers for a veg thali. The incident was narrated by an X user on the social media platform and she also tagged the IRCTC, asking them to address the grievance. In the X post, user @ruchikokcha has explained how she was travelling with her family on a Delhi-bound train when the incident happened.
The group had a total of ten seats and wanted to order dinner. According to her, the IRCTC representative onboard informed them that the veg thali costs Rs. 150. Next, she states that "We clearly told him we would need the bill. When he brought the bill he bifurcated the amount into two components veg thali- Rs. 80 + paneer sabji Rs. 70 = Rs. 150. We asked him to make the bill only for veg thali as we ordered just that. He kept arguing with us for an hour that this is how the bill is prepared." She revealed that after an hour, another official arrived and told them that he cannot provided them the bill they requested earlier. Instead, they offered to bill them for a veg thali priced Rs. 80, saying "aap itna hi pay kar do". ["You only pay this much"]
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The X user added, "Clearly the staff is looting the public by giving the meal overpriced and then adding other components to the bill. Please look into this as this kind of behaviour is tarnishing the image of Indian Railways."
The authorities promptly responded to the issue. Railway Seva first requested her, "Ma'am, kindly share PNR and mobile number preferably in Direct Message (DM) - IRCTC Official". This was in reply to her post. IRCTC later wrote, "Ma'am, thanks for highlighting the matter it is viewed seriously. A hefty penalty has been imposed on service provider. Also, the concerned licensee staff involved in overcharging has been deboarded."
The original X post has received more than 398K views within less than 12 hours of it being shared. Read how people reacted below:
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