In an effort to improve quality and efficiency of train services, the Indian Railways is setting up consultative committees at various levels as well as arranging for election special trains targeting Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.

The committees will be able to consult and contribute to railways administration, as informed to the parliament by the Minister of State for Railways, Manoj Sinha.

The aim behind announcing such committees was to connect railway administration with end users and various levels of the railway department so that quality of services could be improved. The committees would ensure better representation for travellers with railways administration.

He said that at the ministry level, there would be a National Railway Users consultative committee. At the head quarters level, there would be a zonal committee and at the divisional level, there would be zonal committees.

There would also be consultative committees for suburban railway users at South Eastern, Eastern, Southern, Western and Central Railways. There would be station committees at select, important stations.

An example for improving efficiency was that the ministry had taken a series of actions like cancelling contracts after it received almost 5000 complaints about catering on long distance and premium trains, lodged last year.

Action taken includes warning in over 1000 cases, fines in over 2000 cases and termination of contract in one case , all awarded as per gravity of offence.

The minister announced a slew of new measures: 10 sophisticated and mechanized base kitchen operated by IRCTC, extending e-catering services from 45 major stations to all A and A-1 class stations, introducing multi-purpose stalls at stations and making catering services optional rather than mandatory in trains. Passengers can book meals after checking PNR status railway.

The minister also suggested that Indian Railways may run Election special trains similar to festival special trains. This would be introduced to cater to demand in the peak season during election time, on particular routes.

The minister informed Lok Sabha that such special trains have been planned thanks to the growing demand. In reply to a supplementary, he said that suggestions given by MPs would be kept in mind.

The supplementary did not address the purpose of an election special train. But the minster noted that the there was great demand for such trains especially for natives of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh who are working in other states and wanted to vote for elections being conducted in native states.

Many workers preferred not to change their constituencies when they travel to other places for work. This was despite the notice given by the Election Commission that workers in other states are free to vote in these states after filling up two forms: one to get enrolled in the electoral rolls of the new place and second to cancel their names form electoral rolls of their native state.

In response to another question, the Minister said that Antyodaya trains will operate on regular fares, but Hamsafar and Tejas trains would run on ‘dynamic pricing.’

Indian railway is running through a tough phase in the recent past years. The traffic in the railways stations seems to be diluting significantly. This in turn affected the revenue of the department. This undesirable drift in the Indian railways has forced the authorities to take advantage of every possible way of improving the revenue. The revenues have dropped drastically to a single digit…! Let’s have a deeper insight into these issues:

• The passenger earnings are anticipated to grow by 16.7 percent. However, the whole department was taken by surprise, when the earnings were dropped from 15% from last year to 7% for the present year. This is absolutely nowhere close to the expected growth.

• It is interesting to note that Railways earn more than two fifths of their revenue from freight traffic. In this context of freight traffic, the railways have witnessed an increase of 8.5 million tons against the estimated increase of 85 million tons!

• In such unfavorable conditions, the railways department has successfully controlled their working expenditure. Talking about the numbers involved here, the working expenditure increased just by 1.5% against the estimated value of 9.6%.

• Apart from the revenue crisis, the railways has to bear an additional burden of 32 thousand crore rupees to pay towards implementing the seventh pay commission recommendations. Adding to this, the budgetary support has sliced 8 thousand crore rupees due to the low spending by our railways.

• When you check out for the Indian railway PNR this time, note that the fares are likely to get increased by 5 to 10 percent in the coming budget sessions. Though the hiking of railway fares is strongly believed to be a politically unpopular move, the railways are left with no other option.

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  • If the railways have to consider other options of getting revenue, it is through the monetization of the existing assets. The authorities are going to have a keen eye on these aspects.

  ow the railway plan for the coming season…? It targets to improve the daily passenger carrying capacity from 21 million to 30 million. A 20% increase of the track length is likely to take place in the coming year. Finally, the freight carrying capacity is all set to increase from 1 billion to 1.5 billion tones. Not to forget that, Indian railways always had a passion for modernized infrastructure and the same is reflected in their actions.

• The above targets seem to be highly impossible to accomplish with the current status of our railway revenue. It is estimated that 8.5 lakh crores will be required by our railways to reach their targets. Several world organizations have accepted to aid financially in this context.

• BK committee has made several suggestions to increase the revenue of the railways. One such suggestion is creative financing. The public and the private investments will be a part of this plan. It is estimated that, this method can generate a whooping revenue of 3,29,800 crores.

The Indian railway is likely to concentrate on the steps to increase the freight revenue. It shouldn’t be a surprise for us, if it starts to explore the untapped areas like auto and FMCG, in search of revenue.

You could have heard about new modernized features of Indian railways like bullet trains and trains with highly sophisticated coaches. Did you take a note of visually impaired friendly train? Indian Railways is all set to introduce its blind friend train…! This is one of the much appreciated initiatives taken up by the railways. Such moves made by government are aimed to make the society a better place to live in and make all the individuals a self-sufficient. This train is set to travel between Mysore and Varanasi. Let’s check out the key aspects of this train here under:

• This train is absolutely special…! Wondering, why it is so…? In our country, it is the first ever completely visually challenged friendly train. The successful implementation of this train has also led to the initiation of such other trains across the country.

• All the coaches of this Mysore-

Varanasi express (train number: 16229 / 16230) are provided with metallic Braille signage. This initiative has provided great ease to the blind people to recognize the indications like toilets, alarm pull chains, berth numbers and emergency windows.

• Earlier, the madras railway station was made blind friendly. About 400 metal signage scripted in Braille were installed at the station describing various needy places like distance of entrance, platforms, counters, toilet, schedule of trains and others. The menu card in the canteens is also made available in Braille. We can state that this move has inspired the Mysore-Varanasi express.

• Prominent people in the Indian politics are involved in this prestigious project. Pratap Simha, the Member of Parliament for Mysore constituency, has financed for this project. This took an expenditure of 2 lakh rupees and time of about 2 months to turn this idea into a reality. Inauguration of the train was also done by him. He played a key role in turning the Mysore railway station blind friendly in November 2015.

• Good news is that, an announcement was made in the recent past that there are plans of implementing this feature in a few other major trains running from Mysore. The trains worth mentioning in this context are the Chamundi express and the Mysuru-Talguppa express.

• IRCTC has stated that all the other features like booking and cancellation of tickets, pnr status railways and others will remain unchanged for these trains.

• Bind people have always found railway journeys risky. Finding their confirmed berths, needy places aren’t easy tasks for them. This initiative can put an end to all these troubles faced by them. The emergency exit plan is also scripted in Braille on the boards, so as to enable the blind people to trace the directions to escape in case of emergency.

In its first journey, though any visually impaired persons are found hardly, we can expect this train to gain a wide popularity among blind passengers sooner or later. This move from Mysore has inspired many other train stations to take up this initiation. Statistics say that around 118 train services and railways are set to follow the path laid by the Mysore-Varanasi express. This trend seems to be soon implemented on a large scale enabling the blind people to travel independently.

Can you guess the budget of Indian Railways for the coming 5 years…? It’s a whooping 142 billion dollars…! The Indian Railway is all set to get into a new phase. In the last year, 110 reform measures were initiated by the Railways which permit 100 percent private sector investment. In a short period of time, we could well be checking out pnr status mobile for the new trains. Check out more about this here under:

• The various targeted segments in this context are metro rails, suburban rails, manufacturing and maintenance and manufacturing, locomotives and rolling stock, electric and signaling works and dedicated freight lines.

• The designated authorities are trying to explore ways to raise the funds by working closely with the reputed financial institutions like World Bank and IFC. The railway minister stated that the e-commerce can help the railways to modernize, expand, introduce transparency, introduce clean energy resources, improve efficiency and meet expectations of the customers.

• The Indian railways in collaboration with the US EXIM bank is working to design the specific financing model to take complete advantage of the huge investments and business opportunities in this sector. Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) is a reputed organization involved in this aspect.

• Aiming to provide transparency in fare and freight pricing, the Indian railways has set to design a draft framework for the same. To make these huge investments a reality, the public and private sector partnerships are encouraged equally.

• A few projects which are on a run in Indian railways are: high speed trains across various cities, freight corridor, doubling and tripling train trips to facilitate heavy traffic, introducing modernized facilities in about 40 major railway stations, upgrading the existing signal system and instrumentation and a few other safety measures.

• In the last year November month, 7 billion contracts were awarded to GE and Alstom. A key role is played by Japan in this context to improve the Indian railway system. We can witness huge investments flowing from this country. Moreover, Japan is extending its financial and technical help in building India’s first bullet train. The Indian railway is all set to capitalize these investments.

• Our railway is also associated with France to improve its services. A major project undertaken in collaboration with France is to study the viability of upgrading Delhi to Chandigarh line which is a 245 km long track. About 400 major railways are set to be modernized under SNCF. The development of pilot projects in Ludhiana and Ambala are taken up by the French National railway.

• A major initiative which is worth mentioning in this context is implementing the renewable energy resources to power up the railways. Solar and wind energy are prominently considered in this aspect. Use of this clean energy is a welcome phenomenon to promote our struggles to reduce pollution levels. Apart from being eco friendly, this can also be economical to the Indian railways.

These initiatives taken up the Indian railways are truly fascinating. In this massive scale, we can expect our railways to modernize at a faster rate.

In India, the railways are the backbone of long distance travelling. There are complaints against the tatkal booking system since a long time. Indian railways have come up with a new set of cancellation / refund rules putting an end to dissatisfaction among passengers. These new rules have come into action since 12^th November 2015. It is aimed at the following aspects:

• To prevent misuse of tatkal scheme.

• To fulfill the proposed objectives like mobile tickets and paperless tickets to the passengers.

• Put an end to the agents/touts in railways.

As a part of these modifications, the Indian railways have enabled UTS counters, where the cancellation requests are undertaken and the refunding process is carried out beyond the working hours of PRS. If you booked your tickets online, you will be refunded automatically. Prior to the introduction of this scheme, ticket deposit receipt has to be filed for the refund process.

A few noteworthy changes are mentioned here under:

• The cancellation charges for the unreserved, RAC and waitlisted tickets are doubled.

• There is also a significant hike in the cancellation charges of the confirmed tickets.

• In case of refunding on unused RAC/WL tickets the time limit is reduced to half an hour from 3 hours.

• Cancellation of e-tickets no longer requires the filling of TDR.

Another important modification is that the passenger will not be refunded in case of cancellation of unused tatkal tickets. However, in some special circumstances like late running of trains, this rule will be exempted.

These set of new rules can help the Indian railways to use the seats optimally as the passengers have to cancel the tickets 4 hours prior to the departure to claim refund. The hike in fares can also put an end to the agents and touts who book the tickets on fake names and make money by selling them at higher prices. A significant growth in the revenue of the Indian railways can be observed as the cancellation charges are increased.

New booking rules:

The modifications are also extended to the booking policies, which have been effective from 12^th November 2015. Check out the important feature of these modifications:

• One can witness the final chart at least four hours prior to the departure of the train. This feature enables the passengers to plan well in advance for their journey.

• Once the final reservation chart is on, booking counters will reopen on internet and on PRS counters. This can enable the passengers to book the available accommodation in the trains. If you wish to cancel your RAC/waiting list ticket, you have the time up to 30 minutes before the scheduled departure of the train.

• Just before departure of the train, a second and the final chart will be prepared and is made available to the ticket checking staff.

The implementation of these new policies has benefited the railways to a large extent. When you get to know your PNR status railway, make sure to have these changes in your mind.

“100 stations will go Wi-Fi by the end of 2016”, you don’t believe us…? These words are said by the Google CEO Pichai himself. Isn’t this great news..? Let’s check out more about this here under:

Free Wi-Fi in railways:

Internet has turned out to be a great medium to connect the citizens of India, which is second highly populated country. As a part of this, the government in collaboration with Google has stepped forward to bring free internet to the railway stations. This isn’t going to be an easy task especially in our mighty railways. Initially, it is planned to bring internet connectivity to 400 stations across India and making this come true, the plan for the first hundred stations has been announced. An agreement has been signed between the Railtel and Google regarding this project. This project will be evaluated at the end of 2016 and necessary steps will be taken to successfully complete it. The key points to be worth to be mentioned in this context are as follows:

• Pan-India optic fiber network, which has laid over 45,000 km of optic fiber network, is utilized by the Google to accomplish this task. The ISP will be provided by the Railtel and the WAN will be taken care by the Google. It is to be noted that this internet access is confined only to platforms and trains are not included under this project.

• The speed and efficiency are given utmost importance. The users can watch HD standard streaming videos.

• If you wonder, if this service is free of cost, you are not the only one who thinks of it. Taking example of airports, the Wi-Fi is free only for a limited period of time and there are chances that the same can be applied to the railways. This project can last for a longer period of time, only it can manage to explore different revenue models.

How can the free Wi-Fi benefit us..?

• The first thing that strikes many passengers, when they hear the combo of railway and the Wi-Fi, is checking the railway pnr status Many times, you may have to constantly monitor your pnr status and it could be a hectic task without internet access. All that you need to do is, visit the official site of Indian railways, enter your pnr number and get the status.

• The foreign tourists can be highly benefited by this service. It can help to explore information, which can make their plans easier. This has an indirect impact on the Indian tourism.

• Fraudulent touts and middlemen have become an albatross in major railway stations. Free internet access can completely put an end to these anti-social elements and ensures high safety.

• Students extensively use trains to travel. This project can help them to use their time effectively. Isn’t this a step towards smarter India…?

There are many hidden benefits of this project which has direct and indirect impact on various issues. The biggest advantage is that, your waiting time for the train will be less boring..!

India was once the owner of the largest railway networks in the world. But now it has lost its place to Japan. Now the question arises is why and how? The answer is very simple. The day to day mismanagement and regular accidents that are happening are claiming innocent lives in India. People are now worried to travel by train. India has more population, but no one is eager to travel by train nowadays. Even there is a question of comfort ability and safety. There are instances of robbery and burglary in the train at night. Trains get late to reach the destination. The absence of punctuality is another dreaded factor which is making Indian Railway suffers. We need to rectify these.

What are the ways to come out from this dead end? There is a solution to every difficulty. Japan has fewer trains and tracks than India. But still they are ahead of our country. How? This is because they run the trains fast and follow a particular timeline. The superfast train was invented in Japan since 1964 and it has not faced a single accident. Surprised! But that is the truth.

Other countries compared to Japan have faced many fatal accidents after the fast engines were introduced. India is also not an exception. But the question that arises is Japan faces many earthquakes and tsunamis. Till there are no fatalities. When the 2011 tsunami hit Japan, at that moment 27 trains were running simultaneously. They halted simultaneously and not a single life was lost.

But what does Japan has that other countries do not have? This is because of the safety measures they have. Whenever there is a natural calamity, the sensor catches the signal a few seconds before the calamity hits on. The train’s power gets automatically switched off and they come to a halt. That is why it is easy for the country to save lives during any kind of calamities.

Some officials of Japan have also come to India and are working on railway projects. They are working with the metro railway systems that run in cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Bengaluru. They are also planning for a 500 kilometers high speed railway line between Ahmedabad and Mumbai.

India is learning. India is developing. They are taking ideas from Japan in developing the railway tracks so that there can be no fatalities any more. Development is immediately needed in the Indian Railway system. There should be more trains and developed engines so that there will no delay in reaching the venue.

Apart from facilities like booking tickets online or checking Indian rail pnr status online or on mobile, there should also be development of railway stations, signaling system and easy telecommunications. The railway tracks should be repaired properly to avoid accidents. By doing all these things, Indian railway can regain its lost pride. Indians will be happy to have a journey by train. They will take pride in telling their rail stories and the lovely moments they have experienced in their journey.