No truth in TOI Newspaper report dated 02.01.2016 ‘IRCTC website is sitting duck for hackware’

No truth in TOI Newspaper report dated 02.01.2016 ‘IRCTC website is sitting duck for hackware’

Dear Users,

SUBJECT: Times of India news article titled “IRCTC WEBSITE IS SITTING DUCK FOR HACKWARE”, dated 02.01.2016.

There is no truth in the above referred article published in TOI on 02.01.2016. Tickets can not be booked in Tatkal on IRCTC website in 10-20 seconds as claimed in the report. Adequate steps have been taken by IRCTC to counter the efforts/ claims reportedly being made by various Tatkal software sellers in the market. These softwares are using scripting tools at client end for fast filling of passenger data, which is being nullified by various delays and time checks implemented in the booking and payment process at IRCTC end.

There is no hacking of IRCTC website, as claimed in the news article. In fact large number of checks have been deployed on the website to safeguard the interests of users of website like:

(i) Only two Tatkal tickets for single user ID in opening Tatkal in 10-12 hours period,

(ii) Maximum 10 tickets in a month to a user.

(iii) Only one Tatkal ticket in single session ( except return journey),

(iv) Only two opening tatkal tickets per IP address,

(v) OTP (One time password) is mandatory for net banking payment options. This has been confirmed by all Indian Banks to IRCTC.

(vi) Time check delays in passenger information filling, Captcha and bank payment.

With various checks and time delays implemented on IRCTC website, it is not possible to book any opening Tatkal ticket in 10-20 seconds as claimed in the report.

Authority: www.services.irctc.co.in

Introduction of Alternate Trains Accommodation Scheme (ATAS) - VIKALP form 1.11.2015

VIKALP form 1.11.2015 : Introduction of Alternate Trains Accommodation Scheme (ATAS)

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

MINISTRY OF RAILWAYS

(RAILWAY BOARD)

No. 2015/TG-I/20/P/ATAS

New Delhi, dated 13.10.2015

The Managing Director,

CRIS, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi.

Sub: Introduction of Alternate Trains Accommodation Scheme (ATAS)

Ref: CRIS’ letters dated 10.04.2015, 13.05.2015,. 10.09.2015 & 22.09.2015.

Please refer to CRIS letters referred to above and discussion held during the meeting held at CRIS on 08.10.2015.

2. It is desired that the Alternate Train Accommodation Scheme(ATAS) may be introduced under the name “VIKALP” w.e.f. 01.11.2015 as per the scheme proposed by CRIS except for the following revised features:-

(i) For the present, this scheme may be implemented only across Mail/Express trains of same category and for minor difference, if any, no extra charges shall be taken from passengers or any refund shall be provided for difference of fare.

(ii) Instead of same .originating/destination station, the passenger can be considered for shifting to a train leaving from any station amongst the cluster of stations defined by the zonal Railway based on the convenience of the passengers to a station serving the destination station on the same analogy.

(iii) In normal circumstances the booking in all the trains including special as well as main trains should be opened for booking on first come first served basis and passengers should be shifted against the vacant accommodation available in the alternate train. Earmarking of separate accommodation for ATAS will defeat the purpose of introduction of scheme which was to ensure optimal utilisation of available accommodation in all the trains.

sd/-

(Vikram Singh)

Director Passenger Marketing

Railway Board

Authority: www.indianrailways.gov.in

Train Enquiry Mobile Application on iOS platform , Paperless Unreserved Tickets, Season tickets, Platforms tickets, CoTVM, and Train Enquiry Mobile App - IT Enabled Passenger Services Launched by Indian Railways

Train Enquiry Mobile Application on iOS platform – IT Enabled Passenger Services Launched by Indian Railways

Paperless Unreserved Tickets, Season tickets, Platforms tickets, CoTVM, Train Enquiry Mobile App

IT Enabled Passenger Services Launched by Indian Railways

Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu Launched these Services Through Video Conferencing from New Delhi. The Railway Minister Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu launched following IT enabled passenger services through video conferencing from New Delhi:

1. Paperless Unreserved Ticketing through Mobile Phones on suburban stations over Central Railway

2. Paperless Platforms tickets at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Dadar Central, Panvel, Thane and Lokmanya Tilak Terminus, Andheri, Mumbai Central, Borivali, Dadar Western, Dadar Central, Vasai Road, Bandra, New Delhi and Nizamudding stations on Northern Railway, Western Railway and Central Railway

3. Paperless Season tickets on suburban sections of Western Railway, Central Railway and New Delhi-Palwal Section of Northern Railway.

4. Currency, Coin – cum – Card operated Automatic Ticket Vending Machines at various suburban stations on Central Railway and Western Railway.

5. Train Enquiry Mobile Application on iOS platform.

On this occasion ,Chairman Railway Board, Shri AK Mital and other Board Members, Additional Member(C&IS) Shri Mohd. Jamshed, MD CRIS Ms Vandana Nanda were among those present at the programme.

Speaking on the occasion , Minister Of Railways Shri Suresh Prabhu said “Moving ahead in the direction of making Digital India, today, I am happy to inaugurate the System for Paperless Unreserved Tickets, Paperless Season Tickets and Paperless Platform Tickets through Mobile Phones, in the Mumbai Suburban system of WR and CR and Delhi – Palwal section of Northern Railway from today.

About 50 Currency-cum-coin-cum-card Ticket Vending Machines (CoTVMs) are now functional over various stations.

I am also happy to inaugurate the Currency and Coin Operated Ticket Vending Machines (CoTVMs), being installed at various stations of Central and Western Railway. All these initiatives were promised in my Budget Speech this year.

Another initiative that is being launched today is the Train Enquiry Mobile App on the iOS that is Apple platform. This app has been working very well on the Android and Windows based mobile phones and now will give good facilities for Apple phone users also.

The paperless Unreserved Ticketing System is a boon for passengers traveling in suburban areas, since it will drastically reduce the time a passenger takes at the station, waiting in queue to buy a ticket. It will enable “Mission 5 minutes” (not more than 5 minutes to buy a ticket) to become a reality. Railways will also benefit from this innovation because they will be able to cope with higher ticket sales with lower investments.

The Paperless Ticketing service is already running in some sections of Mumbai Western Railway and Delhi. With the latest launch, this service will be available across all of Mumbai’s suburban sections on both Central and Western Railways. This system is based on the “UTS on Mobile” app, which has a “Railway Wallet” feature. While this system has been introduced to increase passenger convenience, a few safeguards have been built-in to prevent misuse of the tickets. Firstly, the tickets cannot be forwarded from one phone to another. Second, one cannot buy the ticket after starting one’s journey. A system of distinct daily colour codes, embedded QR codes, and sync feature has been devised to ease the work of the ticket examiners, while providing unparalleled convenience to the users.

A very useful feature added today is that of buying Paperless Season Tickets and Paperless Platform Tickets through the Mobile App. The Paperless Season Ticket feature will be particularly useful for the suburban passengers, large numbers of whom travel on Season Tickets.

Another innovative system being introduced for Mumbai suburban section of Western Railway and Central Railway is the Cash/Smart Card operated Ticket Vending Machine (CoTVM), which is a self-service kiosk for passengers to buy their own unreserved tickets. It has a user-friendly graphical interface that can be used by all passengers. The machine takes currency notes and coins in addition to smart cards for payment. This will save the passengers’ precious time, and will ease the pressure on the Railway administration as well, enabling them to give better service to the passengers. Again, security features”

Procedure for booking of Paperless Unreserved Journey tickets, Season tickets and Platform tickets

Download the Mobile application from Google Play Store or Windows Store.

Register by providing Mobile Number, Name, City, Train Type, Class, Ticket Type, Number of Passengers and Frequently travel routes.

Payment has to be made using R-Wallet. Upon successful registration, R-Wallet will be opened with Zero Balance.

Value can be topped up in R-Wallet by tendering cash across the nominated counter and also online on website “utsonmobile.indianrail.gov.in”.

Passenger can book single Journey ticket, Platform ticket as well as season tickets by choosing appropriate option in the App.

The Smart Phone should be GPS enabled to book single journey ticket and Platform ticket.

Functioning Of CoTVM

Cash/Smart card operated ticket vending machine (CoTVM) is a self-operated kiosk, which can be used by passengers to buy unreserved tickets through currency/coins/smart cards and to recharge smart cards. These kiosks have easy graphical interface for ticket transaction so that the user can operate these machines themselves. The kiosk accepts currency/coin of all glued/taped/coloured notes and accepts currency notes of Gandhi series. CoTVMs will reduce queue lengths at existing ticket counters by providing an alternate unmanned ticketing solution and mode of payment.

CoTVMs have the following functions

Issue of non-concessional second class journey tickets for non-suburban section and second/first class journey/return tickets for suburban section.

Issue of platform tickets.

Renewal of non-concessional season tickets.

Recharge of smart cards in denominations of Rs. 20/-, Rs. 50/-, Rs. 100/- and Rs. 500/-.

CoTVM consists of:

1. Thin Client

2. Thermal Printer

3. Touch screen

4. RFID reader

5. Cash Validator with 15 notes escrow

6. Coin Validator with 10 coins escrow

7. The cash box has the capacity to hold 25,000 notes and 3,000 coins.

The basic difference between automatic ticket vending machine (ATVM) installed upto now and CoTVM is that ATVM can issue tickets through smart cards only whereas CoTVM can issue tickets using cash (notes & coins) and smart cards. It can also be used for recharging these smart cards.

Security of CoTVM

The machine has two access doors, both at the front side of the machine and is equipped with mechanical & electronic locks. One door is used for maintenance activity by the service engineer. The second door is for accessing the cash box and is integrated with an alarm system. The alarm will go off whenever the door is opened by any unauthorized person. The machine has a cash box with electro mechanical lock at the bottom. Whenever the authorized supervisor wants to open the cash box to takeout shift cash, he/she will gain access to the machine by using a supervisory smart card and his password. After entering the password, machine will print the Daily Trains Cash-cum-Summary Book (DTC) for accountal of the collected cash.

Commissioning of CoTVM

On 01.09.2015, 6 CoTVMs were inaugurated at New Delhi of Northern Railway and 08 CoTVMs at Sealdah & Howrah stations of Eastern Railway. So far, total 48 CoTVMs have been commissioned over Northern Railway and Eastern Railway.

Train Enquiry Mobile Application on iOS platform

Centre for Railway Information System (CRIS), the IT arm of Indian Railways, has enhanced the train enquiry system by developing mobile apps. Mobile app for Windows 8 and Android were launched earlier and are widely used by rail passengers. Now one more step ahead, mobile app for iOS platform has also been developed and ready for launch. It has now become easier for the rail passengers to track information on expected arrival and departure timings of a particular train and other information.

National Train Enquiry System (NTES) is the base system which provides information to public about train running on near real time through various interfaces like nationwide unique rail enquiry number 139, website (www.trainenquiry.com), mobile interfaces, Touch Screens, Face to Face enquiry and Display Boards at stations.

One of the best features of the app is ‘spot your train’ which provides information such as its current position, expected time of arrival and departure at a particular station. Other features are ‘train schedule’, ‘train between station’, ‘live station’, ‘information on cancelled, rescheduled & diverted trains’. ‘Live Station’ query provides list of trains expected to arrive at/depart from any station in next 2 or 4 hours.

Thus, CRIS has made available train enquiry app for three most commonly used mobile platforms viz. Windows, Android and iOS.

The NTES app is available as a free download from App store.

Source: PIB News

Information through SMS would be sent to passengers informing about cancellation of trains

Cancellation of trains – Information through SMS to passengers

SMS based alert service for cancelled Trains

Ministry of Railways has started yet another passenger friendly measure on pilot basis, under which SMS messages would be sent to passengers informing about train cancellation in case the train in which they have booked their tickets for is cancelled due to unavoidable circumstances. Under this pilot project, the SMS messages are being sent to those passengers who are boarding at originating station. At a later stage, this will be extended to cover enroute station also. This exclusive SMS based service has been commenced on all India basis.

The SMS will be sent to their respective mobile numbers entered by them in reservation slips while buying tickets from PRS counters or while purchasing online e-tickets. The cancellation information would be sent quite in advance to the passengers for their convenience so that it may help them plan alternative arrangement in time. To avail this facility, passengers are advised to invariably mention their mobile numbers on the reservation slips.

The software for this service has been developed by Center for Railway information systems (CRIS), the information technological (IT) wing of the Indian Railways.

Source: PIB News

Tatkal Booking Timings Change – Online Booking Passengers Pleased

Revision of Tatkal Timings – Passengers are happy with the steps taken by the Railways?

Tatkal Booking Timings Change – Online Booking Passengers Pleased

There is now a reduction in the jamming of the IRCTC website that occurred because AC and Second Class passengers were trying, at the same time, to book tatkal tickets online. It has therefore now become easier for passengers to book second class tickets on the internet.

Nearly 15000 tickets are being booked through IRCTC website at tatkal hours. The huge traffic will be diverted into two segments such as AC and Non AC.

Timings for the Railway Tatkal ticket booking have been changed from 15th June 2015. Previously the booking under Tatkal Scheme opens at 10.00 hrs on the previous day of journey from train originating station for all classes. According to the new schedule, booking for the AC coaches will open at 10 AM and ticket bookings for the other non AC classes are open at 11 AM.

And one more important decision taken by the Railway Board is completely debarred from booking tickets during the first thirty minutes of opening of booking for all authorized IRCTC Agents.

Generally the total number of seats of a train are divided into various quotas. Such as General Quota, Tatkal Quota, Ladies Quota and Pooled Quota. These quotas will differ for different trains.

30% of the total available Berths on a train are allocated for Tatkal Quota, and 10% are set aside for sitting tickets. Approximately 2 seats will be allocated in each coach for Ladies Quota. And nearly 8% of seats reserved for Pooled Quota. In AC Coaches, 16 tickets for each 3-tier AC coach and 10 tickets of 2-tier AC coaches are also being allocated for the online tatkal booking.

Accommodation reserved not only for Ladies, also Sr. Citizen and Pregnant Women. Accommodation of six berths in sleeper class of all the trains is earmarked for exclusive use of lady passengers. In addition to this a combined quota of 2 lower berths is earmarked in sleeper class, AC 3-Tier and AC 2-Tier classes for Sr. Citizens, Female passengers 45 years of age and above traveling alone and pregnant women in all trains. Pregnant women will be required to submit a certificate of pregnancy certified by one registered Medical Practitioner at the time of booking against the quota.

So totally 40% tickets are being set aside for quota reservations. With more than 80% of the population preferring to travel in second class, it becomes a moral duty of the Government to give due importance to it.

Click to read more at cgstaffnews.in

‘Operation Five Minutes’ – Now Unreserved Ticketing on your Mobile Phone

‘Operation Five Minutes’ – Now Unreserved Ticketing on your Mobile Phone

Suresh Prabhu Launches Mobile App for Paperless Unreserved Ticketing

Fulfilling yet another commitment of the Railway Budget 2015-16, the Minister of Railways Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu launched Mobile Application for Paperless Unreserved Ticketing through video conferencing on Egmore–Tambaram Suburban Section of Chennai, at a function here today. This is a pilot project covering 15 stations in Southern Railway and will be extended to entire country in phases. Referring his Railway Budget announcement, the Railway Minister said that for the passenger, the Indian Railways is committed to ‘Operation Five Minutes’ – that is, purchase of an unreserved ticket within five minutes and today’s launching of Paperless Unreserved Mobile Ticket is the first step in this area. He said that it will allow the passenger to buy a ticket on the move and allow him or her to board the train with the ticket secured on his or her mobile phone, without any need for printing the ticket. Shri Suresh Prabhu commended all the members of CRIS to develop the Paperless Unreserved Ticketing Mobile Application and hoped for speedy implementation of other IT projects in the pipeline. The railway Minister said that the innovative ideas are always welcome and said that he has set up ‘Kayakalp’ Council which will consider innovative ideas for the betterment of Indian Railways.

Shri Suresh Prabhu also unveiled the plaque for the foundation of the Indian Railways Datacentre in Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), an IT wing of Indian Railways, which will provide state-of-the art facilities to house the required computer equipment. Shri Prabhu said that he would expect this new building to be environmental friendly and called upon the officials to complete the construction of this building before scheduled deadline ensuring quality with less cost.

Speaking on the, Chairman, Railway Board, Shri A.K.Mital said that CRIS, a IT arm of Indian Railways since 1986, has proved capable of managing large railway-wide IT applications such as Passenger Reservation System, Unreserved Ticketing System and Freight Operations Information System. He said that over the years, CRIS has implemented other centralised applications such as Control Officer Application, Crew Management System and Integrated Coaching Management System. Shri Mital said that with CRIS taking up the challenge of developing and implementing these large system, the Indian Railways will see a sea-change in the effectiveness and utilisation of its assets, cutting down cost and improving its services.

Member Traffic, Railway Board, Shri Ajay Shukla said that the Unreserved Ticketing System is an important revenue generating system developed by CRIS. He said that nearly two crore passengers obtain unreserved tickets daily through nearly 11470 counters and 5836 locations generating about Rs. 52 crore of revenue per day. He congratulated CRIS for successfully developing Application App for paperless unreserved ticketing system on Indian Railways.

To move forward in line with digital India, Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) has developed a paperless Unreserved Ticketing feature in Mobile Application “utsonmobile” both for Android and Widows platforms. This will eliminate the need for printing of Unreserved Tickets on ATVMs at the stations. User can download ‘App’ from Google Play Store or Window Store.

The application is being rolled out as a pilot between Chennai Egmore & Tambaram suburban Section of Southern Railway covering 15 stations. For paperless ticketing, GPS co-ordinates of suburban railway track on the Chennai Egmore-Tambaram section, plus 15 meters on either side of the tracks have been earmarked as Geo-Fencing area within which no ticket booking is allowed in order to ensure that passengers have ticket before commencing the journey. After implementation of paperless ticketing, facility of printing paper ticket at ATVM will not be available on Chennai-Egmore to Tambaram Section.

The application provides necessary on-screen alerts to guide the passenger during the booking process. Payment for the ticket is done through the “Railway Wallet” feature in the “App”. After booking the ticket, the passenger will get the ticket confirmation screen which contains limited information of the ticket. The paperless journey ticket will be stored in the local mobile application database in the encrypted form which cannot be tampered with. The passenger has to start the journey within 1 hour as per policy for suburban sections. Ticket booked in paperless mode cannot be cancelled in order to prevent claiming of refund after travel.

The ticket has distinct colour scheme everyday and it is embedded with Quick Response (QR) code. It cannot be forwarded to another mobile or edited or printed. The old invalid tickets will be removed from the mobile device through a sync feature in the ‘App’.

For the purpose of ticket checking, the application has various features such as colour scheme, show ticket features, secret code of the day, booking time of the ticket and scrolling of legend “IR UNRESERVED TICKETING’. In case of mobile in disconnected mode, it will be checked through QR Code.

The Indian Railways Datacentre will be a new building in the premises of existing CRIS office. Indian Railways depends heavily on Information Technology for its customer facing commercial activities, train operations, and internal management. Critical IT applications run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, throughout the year, to support Railway operations. These applications cannot be shut down for even a minute on account of any outage of power or cooling.

Sensitive computer equipment used by these IT applications such as high-end servers, storage, network switches etc. needs a controlled environment with precision air-conditioning, uninterruptible power supply (UPPS) , adequate network bandwidth, fire suppression, access control and comprehensive security/surveillance.

The existing datacenters of Indian Railways are nearing their fully capacity. As the number of critical applications increases, this capacity needs to be expanded and the infrastructure brought in line with global standards. To achieve this, the IR Datacentre in CRIS has been planned to ensure state of the art infrastructure for continuous power, precision cooling and protection to the equipment. Complete redundancy and physical security will be provided in the datacenter facilities through the latest technologies in this area. A secure Internet gateway with high bandwidth datacom circuits already exists, and will be expanded further.

The Indian Railways Datacentre can also cater to its PSUs and will help Railways to provide better services to its customers and management.

Source: PIB News

IRCTC plans to reduce the payment transaction time - 1.5 to 2.5 minutes per ticket booking online

IRCTC plans to reduce the payment transaction time - 1.5 to 2.5 minutes per ticket booking online

15% of online rail tickets booked from Bihar

Patna (PBNE): The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) created a record on April 1 by booking about 13 lakh e-tickets on its site, www.irctc.co.in. Normally, 5 to 6 lakh tickets are booked online from the IRCTC site every day. Bihar has become a major state accounting for about 15% e-tickets being booked daily.

According to IRCTC manager Sandip Dutta, Patna and Darbhanga are the leading places in Bihar for booking e-tickets these days. Interestingly, Bihar and UP are the major states from where online tickets are being booked from rural areas yielding good revenue to the railways, he said, adding the maximum number of e-ticket service agents in rural areas are also in these two states.

Dutta said out of 13 lakh e-tickets booked on April 1, about 15% were from Bihar alone. About 1.5 lakh people in Bihar book e-tickets every day. Buoyed by the increase in the online ticket booking system, the IRCTC has planned measures to providing better services to its customers duly registered with its site www. irctc.co.in, he said.

Railways online ticket reservation through the IRCTC site has registered a big increase compared to about 40,000 bookings per day in 2008, sources said. According to sources, the IRCTC has been making all possible efforts to expand its network to other private sectors.

Confirming the rush for the IRCTC site for ticket booking either online or through SMS system, the IRCTC senior official said, “The IRCTC has managed to maintain its lead position in the domestic travel ticket bookings. But it is keen to make its portal a ‘one-stop shop’ for planning tours and other services,” he said. According to sources, the IRCTC, a Railways’ wing, has already become an agent of International Air Transport Association (IATA). The IRCTC has tied up with Air India and Jet Airways to provide services to passengers, sources said.

The IRCTC ticket business constitutes about 40% of its total revenue. It is also planning to reduce the payment transaction time which is about 1.5 to 2.5 minutes per ticket booking online.

Read more at: Times of India

New identity cards for Physically Challenged Persons for booking railway tickets online

New identity cards for Physically Challenged Persons for booking railway tickets online

New ID cards for Physically Challenged Persons: Online Reservations for Railway Tickets

Plans are on to launch a new scheme under which physically-challenged persons will be given new identity cards. With these cards, they can now reserve railway tickets online. Physically-challenged persons must get in tough with the zonal manager office’s commercial department for the new identity cards.

Along with the filled and signed application, the applicant must submit photocopies of the following documents – railway concession certificate, physically handicapped identity card, birth certificate, and any one of the ten documents accepted as proof of residence, including voter’s identity card and family ration card. Also required are two passport-sized photographs. New identity cards will be issued to physically-challenged candidates on submission of the application.

With this card, they can now reserve railway tickets online. On submission of a photocopy of the card at the ticket counter, they can obtain tickets for the travel.

Source: cgemployeesnews.in

Advance Reservation Period increased from 60 Days to 120 Days from Tomorrow (1.4.2015)

Advance Reservation Period increased from 60 Days to 120 Days from Tomorrow (1.4.2015)

From Tomorrow Advance Reservation Period for Booking Reserved Train Tickets increased from 60 Days to 120 Days

The Ministry of Railways has decided to increase the Advance Reservation Period (ARP) for booking accommodation in trains from 60 days to 120 days (excluding the date of journey). Accordingly, from tomorrow i.e 1st April 2015 the booking in trains from train originating stations will open and remain available for 120 days. For instance, as on 1.4.2015, for trains leaving on 28th July 2015, the reservation can be obtained for journey commencing on all days between 1.4.2015 upto 28.7.2015.

There will, however, be no change in case of certain day time Express trains like Taj Express, Gomti Express, special trains etc, where lower time limits for advance reservations are at present in force. There will also be no change in the case of the limit of 360 days for foreign tourists.

Source: www.7thpaycommissionnews.in

Restriction on Login for Booking of Train e-Tickets

Restriction on Login for Booking of Train e-Tickets

Press Information Bureau

Government of India

Ministry of Railways

23-March-2015 16:52 IST

Restriction on Login for Booking of Train e-Tickets

The Ministry of Railways has decided that in case of e-ticketing, there will be a restriction of only one booking in one user login session and forced logging out of the user before another booking for all users including IRCTC agents but excluding defence booking under warrant only.

This restriction will be applicable while booking of e-ticket between 0800 and 1200 hours. However, this restriction will not be applicable while booking onward journey/return journey e-tickets.

Source: www.7thpaycommissionnews.in

Printing of All India Helpline Number.“138”& Security Helpline Number. ‘182” on Train Tickets

Printing of All India Helpline Number.“138”& Security Helpline Number. ‘182” on Train Tickets

The Ministry of Railways has decided that in order to publicize and bring more awareness among train passengers, the text “All Indian Passenger Helpline No. 138” is to be got printed at the front of the reserved as well as unreserved train tickets i.e. Passenger Reserved System (PRS) as well as Unreserved Train System (UTS). Indian Railways provided the All India Helpline Number ‘138’ for passengers, as interface for queries/complaints related to medical emergency, cleanliness, food & catering, coach maintenance, linen etc.

The text “PNR and train arrival/departure enquiry No. 139” is also to be printed in the front of the ticket.

Further, it has also been decided that the text “to report unsavoury situation during journey please dial railway security helpline no. 182” also be got printed at the back of the reserved and unreserved train tickets.

It is also desired that the text “please carry valid identity proof” as appearing at the back of reserved train tickets (PRS) may be modified as “please carry original identity proof”. India railways catering & Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), a public sector undertaking the Ministry of Railways, has been directed to make necessary arrangements to ensure printing of the above mentioned text on the hard copies as well as SMS of e-tickets.

Source: www.7thpaycommissionnews.in

Mobile Phone Charging Facilities to be Provided in General Class Coaches

Mobile Phone Charging Facilities to be Provided in General Class Coaches

On-Board Entertainment on Select Shatabdi Trains

The Minister of Railways Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu has said that Indian Railways’ Delhi Division is taking up a project for introducing on-board entertainment on select Shatabdi trains on license fee basis. He said,depending on the response, the facility will be extended on all Shatabdi trains.

Presenting the Railway Budget 2015-16 in Parliament today Shri Prabhu said, Mobile phone charging facilities would be provided in general class coaches and the number of charging facilities would be increased in sleeper class coaches.

Source: www.7thpaycommissionnews.in

Food can be ordered through the IRCTC website at the time of booking of tickets

Food can be ordered through the IRCTC website at the time of booking of tickets

Railways to Integrate Best Food Chains for E-Catering

The Minister of Railways Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu has said that to provide freedom to passengers to select their meals from an array of choices including local cuisine, e-catering has been introduced in 108 trains on an experimental basis from January this year. Food can be ordered through the IRCTC website at the time of booking of tickets. He said, the Railways is working to integrate the best food chains of the country into this project. Depending on the response from the customers, the facility will be extended to cover more trains. It is also intended to set up Base Kitchens in specified Divisions to be run by highly credible agencies for serving quality food.

Presenting the Railway Budget 2015-16 in Parliament today Shri Prabhu said, at the moment water vending machines are sparse. The facility will expand to cover most Railway stations. This will ensure availability of clean drinking water at very low cost to the people apart from being an environment friendly measure.

Source: www.7thpaycommissionnews.in

SMS Alert in advance the updated arrival/departure time of trains

Introduction of SMS Alert in advance the updated arrival/departure time of trains

‘SMS Alert’ Service for Arrival/Departure Time of Trains

The Minister of Railways Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu has said that it is proposed to introduce an “SMS Alert” service to inform passengers in advance the updated arrival/departure time of trains at starting or destination stations. Similarly SMS alert would be sent 15/30 minutes in advance of arrival of the train at the destination.

Presenting the Railway Budget 2015-16 in Parliament today Shri Prabhu said, a centrally managed Railway Display Network is expected to be introduced in over 2,000 stations over the next two years which will aid in providing information on train arrival/departure, reservations, general and emergency messages and also any other information of interest to citizens. This facility will promote “Digital India Campaign” and also unlock huge advertising revenue potential.

Source: www.7thpaycommissionnews.in