NEW DELHI: Indian Railway is transforming under Union Minister for Railways, Information & Broadcasting and Electronics & Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw, who has focused on two priorities, that has direct impact on passengers by bringing authentic regional cuisine into Vande Bharat trains and tightening the railway ticketing ecosystem by removing fake identities from the IRCTC platform. Both of the directives reflect a clear governing approach improve the experience of the honest traveller while shutting the door on manipulation of public systems.
Local cuisine in Vande Bharat: Vocal for Local on the move
Vande Bharat trains have come to represent a modern, passenger centric face of Indian Railways. The Minister’s direction suggests that officials should provide local cuisine of the region in Vande Bharat trains, builds on with the idea, by placing culture and regional identity at the heart of onboard service.
Food is not a minor add on in long distance travel, it shapes how a journey is remembered. Introducing local cuisine is significant because it allows passengers to taste the region they are traversing not just view it from a window. The decision recognises that India’s diversity is not only linguistic and geographical but also culinary and the railways as a national lifeline, it will uniquely be positioned to present that diversity in a tangible way.
This initiative also aligns closely with the national idea of Vocal for Local, a principle where local products, local strengths and local cultural expressions deserve a prominent place in mainstream consumption. When a premium train service serves food that reflects the region, it does more than diversify a menu. It validates local culinary traditions as part of the national experience, rather than treating them as niche or limited to a particular state’s boundaries.
The direction is not framed as a one off experiment. The facility is intended to be expanded progressively to more trains in the future. That matters because it signals a systematic shift in how passenger amenities are imagined from standardised offerings toward services that respect India’s regional richness while travelling through it.
If implemented with consistency and quality control, regional cuisine on Vande Bharat can become a simple but powerful marker of public service that feels rooted. It makes the journey feel less like transit through anonymous corridors and more like movement through living cultures. For many passengers especially those travelling across states food becomes an accessible introduction to local taste, tradition and identity.
At a broader level this decision frames Vocal for Local not as a slogan meant only for markets and exhibitions, but as a practice integrated into daily public infrastructure. Railways are among the few systems that touch nearly every region and community. When a national transporter reflects local flavour, it demonstrates how national unity can coexist with regional pride without forcing uniformity.
A crackdown on fake IDs: Restoring integrity and fairness to ticketing
The second focus of the Indian Railway is to address a long-standing stress point in railway reservation is misuse of the online ticketing system by fake identities. The Minister noted that Indian Railways crackdown on train ticket booking through fake IDs is yielding positive results. The impact is visible in the numbers shared from the reform measures.
Following the introduction of a tough system, to establish user identity and detect fake IDs, about 5,000 new user IDs are now being added daily on the IRCTC website. Before these reforms, this figure had climbed to nearly one lakh new user IDs per day. The contrast between these two figures reveals that it indicates that a very large volume of earlier new account creation was not organic growth by genuine passengers, but abnormal activity consistent with fake registrations and systematic misuse.
These steps have already helped Indian Railways deactivate 3.03 crore fake accounts. Another 2.7 crore user IDs have either been temporarily suspended or identified for suspension based on suspicious activities.
This is not an administrative clean-up. The ticketing system is a public gateway to a public service. When the gateway is flooded by fabricated identities, ordinary citizens pay the price through increased competition from questionable accounts, reduced transparency and the sense that the system is stacked against the honest user. Cleaning the platform is therefore not just an IT measure, it is a governance measure aimed at fairness.
The message is also clear on the next step is that officials to ensure that the ticketing system is reformed to a level where all travellers are able to book tickets easily through a real and genuine user ID. The emphasis here is not only on enforcement against misuse but on ensuring the legitimate passenger experience is simpler and more reliable.
This approach reflects a practical balance, where modern public platforms require strong verification to block abuse, coupled with user-focused design so genuine users are not made to suffer due to the misdeeds of a few. A reservation system serves Indian working population, students, families and senior citizens people who rely on predictable, trustworthy access. The reform objective stated in the meeting places that honest user at the centre.
Two decisions under one theme culture and clean systems
At first hand local cuisine on Vande Bharat and action against fake IRCTC IDs may seem like unrelated subjects one about meals, the other about digital identity. But both decisions serve a shared theme railways must combine better experience with cleaner systems.
The local cuisine directive strengthens the emotional and cultural quality of travel making modern trains feel connected to the land they pass through, reinforcing India’s diversity as a lived experience. The fake ID crackdown strengthens the moral and functional quality of access ensuring that public infrastructure is not captured by deception and that genuine citizens are not sidelined.
In a country where railways remain the most democratic mode of transport, these reforms carry meaning beyond convenience. It demonstrates that passenger comfort and system integrity can be pursued together one through celebrating local identity, the other through enforcing authenticity in digital access. As Indian Railways modernises, this model of reform is both grounded and firm which will be celebrated by the local and protect the system from manipulation so the honest traveller benefits.
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