Indian Railways is going to live stream its kitchens to the world to ensure transparency

Horror stories of railway staff making tea with water from the train restrooms leaves most scarred and wondering what happens in the kitchen where the actual food is cooked. Well, now you needn’t wonder any more, the railways will soon be live-streaming kitchen proceedings from its base kitchens directly to the Indian Railway Catering & Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) website.

Just last month the railways inaugurated its kitchen monitoring system wherein Artificial Intelligence-enabled high definition CCTV cameras were installed in 16 of the 200 base kitchens, and the live feed of the goings on inside the kitchens would be monitored in a hi-tech surveillance room set up at the IRCTC’s headquarters in Delhi.

Now, rail and coal minister Piyush Goyal has decided to take this a step further and share this feed with everyone. Goyal told Times of India that passengers will be able to watch the live stream through both IRCTC’s website and an app that the railways is developing.

The AI system mentioned above basically uses pre-fed photos of typically ‘acceptable’ proceedings, or standard operating procedure (SOP), and if something out of the ordinary is picked up, it recognises and flags that.

For example, if a member of the staff is not wearing the requisite headgear or if there is a rat scurrying about in the kitchen, the camera will detect the same and raise an alarm. A report generated by the system will first go to the contractor who should then take care if the issue. However, if left unaddressed, the report is then sent to IRCTC authorities.