Passenger Amenities
The widespread disappointment of the travelling public with the
state of cleanliness and hygiene at stations and trains, bedrolls
and
catering has often been highlighted in this august House. As a
frequent
rail-traveller, I have experienced this personally. Resource
constraint
cannot be a reason for sub-standard services and efforts need to
be
directed for providing reasonable quality of facilities to
rail-users. I am
committed to bring about a marked change in the level of passenger
amenities. It is my firm belief that Railways’ efforts towards
introducing
new trains, or extending the run or frequency of existing trains
should
not be at the cost of amenities for passengers and safety. Some of
the
measures taken/proposed to be taken for improving passengers’
travel
experience are as follows :-
i. Identification of 104 stations, serving a population of more
than
one million or those serving places of religious/tourist
importance for immediate attention to all aspects related to
cleanliness;
ii. progressive extension of bio-toilets on trains;
iii. provision of concrete aprons on platforms with mechanised
cleaning facilities. 200 stations have already been covered;
iv. extension of On Board Housekeeping Scheme (OBHS) and
Clean Trains Stations (CTSs) to more stations and trains;
v. extension of Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS), Automatic
Ticket Vending Machines (ATVMs), Coin-operated Ticket
Vending Machines (CO-TVMs) and scheme of Jan-Sadharan
Ticket Booking Sevaks (JTBSs);
vi. setting up of six more Rail Neer bottling plants at
Vijayawada,
Nagpur, Lalitpur, Bilaspur, Jaipur and Ahmedabad;
vii. launching of a pilot project on select trains to facilitate
passengers to contact on-board staff through SMS/phone
call/e-mail for prompt response for coach cleanliness and also
to provide real time feedback;
viii. setting up of 8-10 more mechanized laundries for quality
washing of linen;
ix. provision of announcement facility and electronic display
boards in trains for disseminating information to on-board
passengers about approaching stations, train running, arrival
platform, etc.;
x. providing free Wi-Fi facility on several trains to cater to the
increasing aspirations and requirement of our youth and other
valued customers;
xi. upgrading another 60 stations as Adarsh Stations in addition
to
980 already selected;
xii. associate voluntary organisations for providing first aid
services etc. at railway stations.
NCR, Delhi Stations
I recognize need for special attention to stations in National
Capital Region. Development of directional terminals began some
years
back with opening of Anand Vihar station. Studies for terminal at
Bijwasan will be taken up during the year. Further, to augment
infrastructure and revamp the facilities at Delhi, New Delhi and
Hazrat
Nizamuddin, works costing Rs 100 crore have been taken up.
‘Anubhuti’
With increasing popularity of Shatabdi and Rajdhani trains, there
is also a demand for higher travel comfort. Responding to this
need, to
begin with, IR will introduce one such coach in select trains
which will
provide an excellent ambience and latest modern facilities and
services.
Such coaches will be named ‘Anubhuti’ with commensurate fare
structure.
Amenities for Differently-abled Passengers
Madam Speaker, India is a signatory to the UN Convention on the
rights of the disabled. We are conscious of our responsibility
under the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). To facilitate the boarding of
trains and exit from the stations for the differently-abled and
the elderly,
the steps proposed include provision of 179 escalators and 400
lifts at A-
1 and other major stations, affixing Braille stickers indicating
the layout
of coaches including toilets, provision of wheel chairs and
battery
operated vehicles at more stations and making coaches wheel-chair
friendly.
In order to provide an employment avenue to the disabled people,
I propose to reserve a specified number of JTBS for them, keeping
in
view the fact that the PCOs at stations have become largely
redundant
after the mobile revolution in India.
IT Initiatives for passenger benefits
To harness technology in myriad forms for bringing about
improvement in the lives of our people was the visionary plan of
Sh.
Rajiv Gandhi. He was the trailblazer of the IT revolution in the
country.
It has helped IR and crores of passengers in many ways. Today, I
look
forward expectantly to the use of Aadhar scheme by IR.
The database
generated, can be extensively and efficiently used by railways not
only
to render more user friendly services such as booking of tickets,
validation of genuine passengers with GPS enabled handheld gadgets
in
trains, but also to provide a better interface with its employees
in regard
to their salaries, pension, allowances etc. I have had some
discussion on
potential applications of Aadhar with Shri Nandan Nilekani. I plan
to
roll out a more efficient and people sensitive Railway Services
system.
Some of the measures initiated or afoot are:-
i. extending availability of the facility of internet ticketing
from
0030 hours to 2330 hours;
ii. making e-ticketing possible through mobile phones;
iii. as a follow up to overwhelming response to IR website and
Integrated Train Enquiry Service under “139”, a project of SMS
Alerts to passengers providing updates on reservation status is
being rolled out shortly;
iv. covering larger number of trains under Real Time Information
System (RTIS), whereby rail-users will be able to access
information through nominated websites and mobile phones.
Ticket Reservation
I often get to hear that congestion at the IRCTC website causes
inordinate delay in accessing the system for e-ticketing. By the
end of
this calendar year, we will put in place a Next Generation
e-ticketing
system which will bring about a paradigm shift in internet rail
ticketing
by significantly improving the end user experience in respect of
ease of
use, response time as well as capacity. The system shall be able
to
support 7200 tickets per minute as against 2000 tickets per minute
today.
It will support 1,20,000 simultaneous users at any point in time
against
the present capacity of 40,000 users with capability to easily
scale up as
demand increases in future. The system will make use of advanced
fraud control and security management tools thereby further
improving
fairness and transparency in disbursal of tickets.
Some measures taken to curb malpractices in reserved tickets
including Tatkal are:-
i. mandatory carrying of ID cards by passengers with reserved
tickets;
ii. rigorous drive leading to prosecution of more than 1800 touts
in
the current year;
iii. in case of tatkal, reduction of advance reservation period to
one
day, issue of tickets only on production of ID proof at PRS
counters, issue of only one tatkal ticket per train per day to web
service agents;
iv. denial of access to agents to internet booking between 0800 to
1000
hrs.
Catering
Madam Speaker, I believe rail travel must be inextricably linked
with good quality, hygienic and affordable food, catering to all
classes of
passengers. For effective quality control, arrangements are being
tied up
with food testing laboratories in addition to third party audit.
State-ofthe-
art base kitchens are proposed to be set up in railway premises
for
better monitoring of quality of meals. ISO certification will now
be
insisted upon for all base-kitchens.
A Centralised Catering Services Monitoring Cell with a Toll free
number – 1800 111 321 has started functioning w.e.f. 18th January,
2013
to facilitate redressal of complaints/suggestions on realtime
basis.
Rail Tourism
Railways form a popular mode of travel, both for domestic and
foreign tourists. To make the experience of tourists more
pleasant, the
following steps are envisaged:-
i. following popularity of Executive Lounge at New Delhi, setting
up of such facility at seven more stations namely, Bilaspur,
Visakhapatnam, Patna, Nagpur, Agra, Jaipur and Bengaluru;
ii. launching a multi-modal travel package with cooperation of
State Government of Jammu & Kashmir enabling passengers to
travel from Jammu through Udhampur, Qazigund to Srinagar and
Baramulla on a common rail-bus ticket;
iii. with the commissioning of railway line up to Katra very soon,
feasibility of issuing ‘yatra parchis’ to pilgrims travelling by
rail at
the time of booking of the railway ticket is being explored in
coordination with Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board.
The role of Indian Railways in unification of the country during
the freedom struggle is historical. I propose to run an
educational
tourist train called ‘Azadi
Express’ to enable our youth to travel to
important places connected with the freedom movement. The train
will
be made attractive and affordable through concessional fares.
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