THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It seems Railways is not content with feeding its one million customers per day. It wants to serve more and earn much more. The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited (IRCTC) has set its eyes on shopping malls, multiplexes and IT parks in major cities in the state to set up multi-cuisine cafeterias. IRCTC’s venture into non-railway catering is in tune with the then Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee’s budget speech in 2011, where she mentioned about developing several business-oriented policies.IRCTC is in search of shops for rent or lease at malls, market places, highways and multiplexes in major points in the state. Ravikumar, Regional Manager of IRCTC, who is in charge of food outlets in the state, said that IRCTC is planning to open food outlets in places like Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, Kozhikode, Kollam and Thrissur. ‘’We are seeking places in IT parks, shopping malls, highways etc so that we could get good business. We will serve all kinds of food, including regional dishes,” he added.The process of establishing food joints would be completed by March. The IRCTC is planning to start operations by September. Currently, IRCTC’s non-railway food outlet has been running at Infopark since June last year. “The Infopark-based outlet is running successfully,” Ravikumar said. The IRCTC has not fixed a particular number of outlets. “This would be decided based on the availability of shops,” he said. The IRCTC’s Expression of Interest seeks shops of minimum 1,500 sq ft area.The IRCTC already has food outlets at Ministry of External Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Agriculture, IIT-New Delhi, Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi, SGPG Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow and Institute of Secretariat Training and Management, JNU Campus, etc.IRCTC also provided catering services at some of the major venues during the Commonwealth Games 2010.
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