Swiggy has taken partnership with the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) and has started supplying food delivery services for train passengers in Bengaluru, Bhubaneshwar, Visakhapatnam, and Vijayawada. The collaboration plans to grow its services to over 59 stations within the following 6 months, improving the dining choices for train passengers.
Founded in 2014, Swiggy is an online food ordering and food delivery platform in India. It is headquartered in Bangalore and it is operated in more than 500 cities across India. Moreover Swiggy has partnered with Burger King, McDonalds, Pizza Hut and numerous other food chains and restaurants to provide delivery services. It has additionally cooperated with Google Local Guide to facilitate customer reviews, and with Sodexo to allow customers to pay through meal cards. Swiggy sent off a digital wallet, Swiggy Money, in partnership with ICICI Bank. In January 2022, Swiggy and drone company ANRA Technologies started testing drone deliveries.
The Managing Director of IRCTC, Sanjay Kumar Jain mentioned, “IRCTC does e-catering in approximately 350 A and A1 class stations where Mail and Express trains have longer halts, making delivery more convenient. We are collaborating with 17 aggregators, including Zomato. Our e-catering business has already generated ₹ 30 crore in revenue this year, providing 60,000 meals per day with nearly zero percent complaint rate.”
In the initial stage of this collaboration, Swiggy will offer its food delivery services to IRCTC customers at only 4 railway stations but soon many of the major stations in India will hopefully receive this facility. However this marks the second time when IRCTC has collaborated with a food delivery platform in the past two years. In the previous year, IRCTC teamed up with Zomato to facilitate the supply and delivery of pre-ordered meals through its e-catering portal at railway stations in New Delhi, Prayagraj, Kanpur, Lucknow, and Varanasi.
“The Indian Railways are the lifeline of our nation, transporting more than 8 billion passengers annually. If during these rail journeys, one has the option to order meals to explore the culinary diversity of India, it would make the experience more convenient and enjoyable, and add to the overall vividness of the train travel,” said Rohit Kapoor, CEO, Swiggy.
