Railways enters the business of catering and tourism, forms a corporation

The Catering and Tourism Corporation will be involved in setting up hotels – 100 to begin with – all over the country and eventually also take over the catering in all the trains. Executive Director (Coaching) M N Chopra has been appointed the Managing Director of the Corpororation.

The main task of the Corporation would be to set up "good quality and reasonable" hotels – on the lines of Rail Yatri Niwas in the heart of Delhi – and restaurants all over the country. "There is an ever increasing demand for good hotels and the railways have decided to oblige. As many as 185 sites have already been identified to set up hotels," a senior Railway Board official said.

This would not only earn some revenue for the railways but also rid them of the Rs 300 crore loss being incurred on catering alone every year. "Catering is a service which should not incur any loss. Though there was some opposition to the Corporation being handed over catering but then the minister put her foot down. But it has been left to the Corporation to decide on how it would handle the enormous and critical task of catering on the trains. They can do it on their own or give it out to private caterers," the official explained.

So the railways will not be responsible for the catering losses any more but will share the profits of the Corporation in their hotel and tourism business. The Corporation will be liable to share part of their profits since the railways will hold 100 per cent shares. "The railways could not have done a smarter thing," said an approving official.

Apart from running hotels and catering, the Corporation will also devise competitive tourism packages. "For example, the railways runs a toy train in Darjeeling. There are so many places which are conveniently accessible only by train or where the train’s journey is very picturesque like Shimla or even the Konkan coastline. A highly attractive package can be devised wherein tourists will be taken on a package tour for a certain amount of money. The Corporation will plan the entire tour and take care of food, lodging and travelling," he said, adding that it was time the vast untapped potential of railways was used.