Railway Minister Piyush GoyalPassengers may soon be able to scan bar codes on food packets served on trains to see the condition of the kitchen in which the food was prepared and packed to decide if it is hygienic.
Railway Minister Piyush Goyal Monday said a project is being worked out to make this idea a reality. “My ultimate aim is to have a bar code on food packets so people can scan the code and it takes them to a live feed of the kitchen in which it was prepared. Seeing the state of the kitchen, people can decide if they want to eat the food or not,” Goyal told reporters while unveiling a website containing project status, information on expenditure, earnings, train operations as well as live videos of IRCTC kitchens.
Sources said the IRCTC is working on the details, including expenditure. “The labeling on the packets is such that all information about the food, including the details of where it was cooked and packed, are already provided,” said a senior railway official.
The new website, called Rail Drishti, a “dashboard” for senior officials and the minister to monitor Indian Railways, has now been made public. “This is in the interest of transparency. Now someone sitting even in the remotest part of the country can see for himself what is happening in Indian Railways. This is the hallmark of our government — accountability,” Goyal said.
The dashboard offers services under 15 categories, including tracking of trains, a 360-degree virtual tour of train routes, freight earnings and expenditure incurred. The dashboard will display the income generated per day, week, month and year. It will show the achievements of the railways and information related to freight trains, Goyal said
The portal can be reached at http://www.raildrishti.cris.org.in. Goyal asked the officials to make the URL simple and called for suggestions from people to improve the website.
