A high level meeting to improve catering facility and food safety at stations and trains was chaired by Chairman, Railway Board, Shri Ashwani Lohani, with CMD (IRCTC), Food Safety Commissioner & CEO (FSSAI), Additional Member (Commercial), Railway Board, Director General (Health), Railway Board & other Senior officials in Rail Bhavan . To improve catering facility, it has been decided that series of reformative steps shall be initiated. All vendors who sell any article of food himself or a petty retailer, hawker, temporary stall holder or such food business including small scale or cottage or tiny food businesses with an annual turnover not exceeding Rs. 12 Lacs or whose production capacity of food does not exceed 100 Kg./ Ltrs per day shall require registration with FSSAI. License in mandatory for food business operators involved in catering services having annual turnover of more than Rs. 12 Lacs per year. It has been decided that online registration for vendors will start within 15 days.
It has been decided in the meeting that Food Safety Officer (FSO) will cover in each Division of Indian Railways and also 300 Health Inspectors across Indian Railways shall be deployed to undertake the work of Food Safety Officer and assist them. It has been decided to create a data bank of caterers and food suppliers over Indian Railways by 15th of July, 2018 having details of vendors, online registration details & sample test done. DRM and Sr. DCM shall be the in-charge of the data bank at divisional level and CCM/ Catering at zonal level. FSSAI and Indian Railways have decided to adopt a revised protocol for sample selection for food sample test, frequency of data collection will increase and surprise sample collection will be included in data bank. Mobile App will be developed for sample collection with the technology of geo tagging. Decision has been taken for third party audit of vendors.