IRCTC delivers 58 crore meals a year, handles 18 lakh daily tickets
New Delhi, June 3
State-owned Navratna PSU Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation has expanded its digital and AI-driven operations across catering, ticketing and passenger services, handling massive passenger volumes and strengthening automation across key railway functions.
The PSU manages catering services in more than 1,400 trains, including premium services such as Vande Bharat Express, Rajdhani Express, Shatabdi Express, Duronto Express, Tejas Express and Gatiman Express, as per data.
On an annual basis, the company serves nearly 58 crore meals across the Indian Railways network.
In addition, the catering ecosystem is increasingly being monitored through technology, with over 800 kitchens tracked through AI-driven cameras integrated with a centralised control system to ensure real-time compliance and quality control.
Its e-catering service, operational at more than 425 stations, recorded average daily orders of over 1.20 lakh in 2025-26, with a peak of around 1.84 lakh meals booked in a single day on October 18, 2025.
The e-pantry service, launched in a phased manner since March 2025, has also recorded about 1.23 lakh meal bookings across select Mail and Express trains.
IRCTC also achieved a milestone by supplying 22 lakh meals across more than 400 election special trains deployed for central forces during the Assembly Elections 2026.
On the digital ticketing front, around 89 per cent of reserved tickets were booked through IRCTC platforms in 2025-26, with an average of 14.53 lakh tickets booked daily.
The highest per-minute booking stood at 37,410 tickets on August 16, 2025, while the highest daily booking reached 18.40 lakh tickets on August 19, 2025.
In Rail Neer operations, IRCTC runs 19 bottling plants with a daily installed capacity of 18.40 lakh bottles.
The corporation said its AI systems are being used for anti-bot protection in ticketing, kitchen monitoring through live feeds, and automated anomaly detection in food preparation processes.
To curb fraud, the PSU deactivated over 3 crore suspicious user IDs in 2025 and blocked 13,343 suspicious email domains, while flagging about 4 lakh suspicious PNRs through cybercrime reporting systems.
The Integrated Railway Helpline (IRHES-139), powered by IVRS, ASR and NLP technologies, handles about 2.2 lakh calls daily in 13 languages.
— IANS
Reader Comments
18 lakh daily tickets – no wonder the website still crashes during festival season! 😅 But seriously, blocking 3 crore fake IDs is no joke. My cousin lost money to a fake IRCTC agent last year, so I'm glad they're cracking down. The 13-language helpline is a game-changer for my grandmother who only speaks Marathi. Now if only they could fix the 'waiting list' anxiety...
As someone who travels frequently between Delhi and Mumbai, I've noticed a real improvement in Vande Bharat catering – the food is actually hot and fresh now. But the regular trains? Still a gamble. 58 crore meals is astronomical, but volume shouldn't compromise quality. The AI kitchen monitoring sounds promising, but I'll believe it when I see it consistently. Good to see IRCTC evolving.
'Rail Neer' bottled water – 19 plants producing 18 lakh bottles daily! But why is it still so hard to find at stations? Last week at Kanpur Central, the vending machine was empty. And don't get me started on the e-catering – ordered biryani from a 'premium' vendor and got something that looked like pulao. The scale is impressive, but execution needs work. Still, proud that a PSU is using AI for anti-bot protection. 🇮🇳
My biggest concern is data privacy – with AI tracking 800 kitchens and handling 2.2 lakh calls daily, are our conversations being recorded? The helpline is helpful, but I once called about a missed train and ended up getting marketing messages later. The numbers are staggering, but I hope they're balancing efficiency with passenger privacy. Good initiative overall though.
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