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Palatable alternative for rail passengers

Patna: With over 3.2 million travellers, Indian Railways is the most preferred mode of traveling in India. This major chunk accounts for 2.5% of nations GDP and is expected to grow further in this financial year. Food is a major concern for people traveling in train. Available foods in trains are mostly cringe-worthy and inedible. People also complain for not being offered the food of their choice while traveling in train. 32% of the train lacked pantry facility too and some of them were trains with travel time of more than 12 hrs. All these concerns were addressed with e-catering services coming into play.

Talking about the conception of the e-catering idea, Manish Chandra says, "It almost seemed impossible to imagine hot, favourite food being served without facing much of hassle right at one's seat while travelling in train. That is it when I came up with a unique business model to form a link between popular food chains and restaurants with the trains and solve the problem pertaining in terms of food availability."

Adding further, he says, "We made our first pilot project by delivering meals between Patna- New Delhi trains. When we found it working, we pushed further on the tie-ups with major restaurants across other routes. This is where the foundation stone of e-catering services was laid upon as Railrestro.com, a venture of Yescom India Softech Pvt. Ltd.

This was the start and as the company began to grow with increasing demands of food supplies in train, the startup reached breakeven in just nine months from the date of its inception. The order processing capability increased from 50 meals to over 500 meals per day. Railrestro later joined hands with Indian Railways e-catering services as an official partner in November 2016.

This was a major leap as the orders grew by three folds in just few months. The major reason behind this was the enormous vendor network at the backend of Railrestro's e-catering venture. Talking about this huge leap, Manish says, "The wider vendor network and multiple options helped us in achieving the major share of orders processed via IRCTC. This fuelled the growth of the company and we could process more and more orders with our restaurant partner's support." Railrestro has emerged as the largest order processing partner in e-catering ecosystem.

Path ahead: Food ordering in train has been diversified across different e-channels. These include channels such as Android app, iOS app or call, through which travellers can place their orders with Railrestro. The app has been configured in such a manner that even if the customer has lost network access while traveling, he may place his order on the go. Railrestro is also looking to expand to smaller locations as well, in order to increase its reach.

Talking about reach and plans, Manish says, "We want to reach every possible location and map the food network across Indian Railways. We are ready to process 10K orders per day and also meet our customer expectations at the same time." flowers are in full bloom during winter. They can be grown in flower pots as well as soil. Each plant sells at between Rs 500 and Rs 1000. (PR Newswire)