Yesterday, the Union Railway Minister of India, Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu approved and inaugurated three Information Technology (IT) enabled projects during a function held at Rail Bhawan.
The three IT enabled projects include:
- Paperless unreserved ticketing through mobile phone in suburban section of South Central Railway
- Pilot Project of Hand Held Terminals (HHT) for train ticket examiners (TTEs) on Northern Railway and
- E-booking of disposable linen on trains at New Delhi Railway Station and Nizamuddin Railway Station. In addition, Launch at Mumbai Central (BCT) and Chattarpati Shivaji Terminus (CSTM) was also announced on this occasion.
The Hand Held Terminals for TTEs will aid in updating the status of the passenger list of the whole train.
With the help of Hand held Terminals for TTEs, after all allotments, remaining vacant berths will be sent back to HHT Application Servers and can be easily accessed on PRS terminal as well as web site Occupancy chart can now be efficiently viewed on HHT device to dispense with the manual preparation of food-chart/occupancy chart.
Next, with the joint efforts of Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), Indian Railways has developed a paperless Unreserved Ticketing Mobile Application, “UTSONMOBILE”. This project was initially rolled out as a pilot project and was subsequently extended to the suburban section of the railway.
This project has aid in reducing the amount of paper used and helped to promote a greener and environmentally-friendly method of booking for tickets. In addition, it also helped to increase the efficiency at which train tickets were sold as compared previously.
Lastly, the introduction of the pilot project, Personalised Takeaway E-Bedroll service which allows the e-booking of disposable linen on trains. It will bring passengers greater comfort and satisfaction during and after the train ride. Notably, these bedrolls are disposable and hence, passengers are allowed to keep them after the journey.This kit can be either booked through the internet or at designated counters.
To sum, these three initiatives will not only improve passenger amenities, but will also bring transparency in berth allocation.
With consideration to India’s aim to becoming Digital India, this initiative not only highlights the committed governmental efforts at providing the best facilities to its passengers through technology and attempts to increase transparency, it will ultimately help to boost India’s progress towards its aim.
