From connectivity to safety, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu has placed his bets on technology to make train travel more comfortable for travellers.
“For ensuring delivery of quality services to its customers, Indian Railways needs to be equipped with modern and cutting edge technology”, he told Parliament on Thursday.
The Railways intends to bring out two mobile apps — one dealing with all ticketing issues and the other for receipt and redress of complaints and suggestions. A new service “Clean my Coach” service will also be introduced Pan-India through which a passenger will be able to request cleaning of his/her coach/toilets on demand through SMS.
The budget also proposes to install information boards in trains enumerating onboard services along with GPS-based digital displays inside coaches to provide real time information regarding upcoming halts. The Railway Ministry, in partnership with Google, will start Wi-Fi services at 100 stations this year, increasing it to 400 more stations in the next two years, the Minister said.
To keep boredom at bay onboard, Mr.Prabhu proposes a partnership with FM Radio stations and introduce Indian Railways bi-lingual magazine Rail Bandhu to all reserved classes of travellers in Mail/Express trains.
The magazine will be made available in all regional languages. Mr.Prabhu said that by 2020, the Railways would work towards meeting long-felt desires of the common man, including use of high-end technology to significantly improve the safety record, elimination of all unmanned level crossings and increasing punctuality to almost 95 per cent.
