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Undercover men to check food, services offered to you in trains

In a unique initiative, the Railways is planning to have undercover sleuths manning railway stations and trains to check for…

Undercover men to check food, services offered to you in trains

Undercover men to check food, services offered to you in trains (Representational Photo: SNS)

In a unique initiative, the Railways is planning to have undercover sleuths manning railway stations and trains to check for anomalies in the services offered by the national transporter, a senior official said on Thursday.

The undercover mystery men will be used to check for faults in the services and food offered by the railways.

Called “mystery shoppers”, they will look like normal passengers but keep a keen eye on the amenities — food, staff behaviour, and quality on trains and at stations — and rate them on their performance.

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According to the Railway Ministry official connected to the development, the Railways plans to bring “undercover” men, dressed in plain clothes, to monitor the food quality, staff behaviour of the services served onboard and at railway stations while acting as normal passengers.

“They shall buy the food as a normal passenger and give feedback about the quality of the food, staff behaviour, amenities and rate the staff on their performance live to the ministry,” the official said.

According to the official, this is one of the many ideas that the Railways is planning to implement to monitor the services it provides.

The official also revealed that the undercover men will have set parameters by which they will rate the amenities by interacting with passengers, staff members and other officials and submit a report based on their findings. The details of the plan are yet to be finalised.

The official also said the Railway Board was in the process of deciding if the Quality Council of India can be roped in to carry out the “shopping” and if NGOs and other civil society groups can also be engaged for the purpose.

The official said that in the whole process of evaluating the services and the quality of food and amenities the identity of the undercover men/passenger will not be revealed at any point to the field officials in order to ensure that transparency in the process is maintained.

This system was developed in the early 20th Century in the US and the UK by firms wanting to evaluate standards being maintained by employees. Now, it is the chosen method of big companies to rate their services from the standpoint of consumers.

(With agency inputs)

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