Union Minister for Railways, Ashwini Vaishnaw on Saturday chaired a review meeting at Rail Bhawan to assess ongoing reforms and passenger-centric initiatives in the railway sector.
Minister of State for Railways and Food Processing Industries Ravneet Singh Bittu was also present at the meeting.
During the review, the Union Minister directed officials to introduce local cuisine on board Vande Bharat trains, saying that region-specific food offerings would significantly enhance the travel experience by reflecting the culture and culinary preferences of the areas through which the trains operate. Officials were instructed to progressively extend this facility to all trains in the future.
The Minister also noted that Indian Railways’ crackdown on ticket booking through fake identities has started yielding positive results. Following the implementation of stricter user verification mechanisms on the IRCTC platform to detect and prevent the creation of fake accounts, the number of new user IDs being added daily has dropped sharply.
Ministry of Railways said around 5,000 new user IDs are now being created per day on the IRCTC website, compared to nearly one lakh per day prior to the recent reforms.
The measures have led to the deactivation of 3.03 crore fake accounts, while another 2.7 crore user IDs have been temporarily suspended or identified for suspension due to suspicious activity.
The Union Minister and the Minister of State directed railway officials to further reform the ticketing system to ensure that genuine passengers are able to book tickets easily using verified and authentic user IDs.
