Overcharged for food on trains? Now use Indian Railways Menu on Rail app

Once you click on a menu, you will get the full list of food items along with the price

How many times have you paid Rs 50 just for a paneer pakoda or two boiled eggs during a train journey? Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has come up with a new app to help you. 

Now, you can check the maximum retail price (MRP) of food items on 'Menu on Rail'. This easy-to-download app is available on both Android and ioS platforms.

Indian Railways

How does it work? 

Once you open the app, it will show you a range of menus -- meant for passengers travelling on long-distance trains, including Humsafar Express, Rajdhani, Shatabdi, Duronto, Gatiman Express and Tejas Express.

When you click on the first tab (Mail/Express/ Humsafar Menu), you find four categories — 1) Beverages 2) Breakfast 3) Meals and 4) A-La-Carte.

Once you select the relevant option, you get the full list of food items along with price. From a cup of tea to vegetarian meal bowls and gulab jamun, Indian Railways has covered every item available either on board or at stations. 

Pre-book your meal in Rajdhani/Duronto Express: 

If are you pre-booking your meal while buying a ticket for Rajdhani or Duronto Express, you can have the option of checking the price under "Rajdhani/Shatabdi/Duronto Menu". 

There are separate options of EC and CC classes for Shatabdi trains and 1A, 2A and 3A classes for Rajdhani and Duronto. If you are opting for Duronto, there is a sleeper class menu also on the app. 

The reason behind 'Menu on Rail': 

"Passengers are often not aware of the rates of the food items and end up being over-charged, so railways introduced this app," says Siddharth Singh, joint general manager, PR, Indian Railways. 

This is one of the several measures taken by IRCTC to restrict vendors from overcharging passengers. 

Recently, Indian Railways has also introduced billing through Point of Sale (PoS) machines in trains. PoS machines are small hand-held devices where you can swipe your credit or debit card and get an auto-generated bill. The machines are functioning in SBC-NDLS Karnataka Express on a trial basis. 

"If you are being overcharged by vendors while ordering food from the train, there will be supervisors available 24x7 to monitor the catering service," the official mentions. There is also a contact number available on the application where you can give your feedback.