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The South Western Railway (SWR) is setting up two new rail-themed restaurants in two of Bengaluru’s railway stations, namely the KSR Bengaluru City Railway Station and the newly inaugurated Sir M Visvesvarya Terminal Bengaluru Station (SMVB), news agency PTI reported.
Both the restaurants are set to be air conditioned, and all passengers traveling through the two stations can start availing services in the restaurants as soon as October this year, according to officials. The restaurants will be set up near the entrances of the stations and are expected to serve both vegetarian and non-vegetarian meals.
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Officials said old and to-be scrapped railway coaches will be modified and refurbished into restaurants with adequate seating facilities to give passengers a new dining experience. The restaurants will serve both north and south Indian delicacies and have a seating capacity of 50 inside the coach, with a few more outside it. Breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner will be made available at these restaurants.
“The main idea behind such restaurants is to give passengers a new and different dining experience. Dining options at railway stations are limited and away from the routine dining experience, these kinds of restaurants will give passengers an option to experience in-coach dining with freshly cooked food since most stations only have pre-cooked food,” Kusuma Hariprasad, Additional Divisional Railway Manager, South Western Railway (Bengaluru Division) told PTI.
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Authorities may explore establishing more such restaurants after the re-development of the Yesvantpur and Bengaluru Cantonment stations, however, these two are the only such themed restaurants planned at present. The contract for the restaurant at KSR Bengaluru City Railway Station was awarded to Oam Industries Pvt Ltd while the contract at Sir M Visvesvarya Terminal Bengaluru Station (SMVB) was awarded to Gaurav Enterprises, an official said.
The contract, whose term is five years, will fetch the railways a revenue of ₹7.54 Crore in licence fees, the official added.
(With PTI inputs)