Wi-Fi facility with free access to rail passengers

WI – FI Service Facility to Railway Passengers

Wi-Fi facility with free access to rail passengers for first 30 minutes in a day is proposed to be provided at all A1 (75), A (332) and B(302) i.e. total 709 railways stations. For period after 30 minutes the service will be available on payment.

Initially the Wi-Fi service is proposed to be provided at 400 nos. of A1 and A category stations. For B category stations Request For Proposal (RFP) issued and date of opening is 23.12.2015.

Initially Wi-Fi project shall be undertaken in phases to cover all A1 and A category stations.

Non-Suburban stations with an annual passenger earning of more than ` 60 crores are categorised as A1 stations. Non-Suburban stations with an annual passenger earnings of ` 8 crores and upto ` 60 crores are categorised as A stations.

RailTel Corporation of India Limited (a Public Sector Undertaking of Ministry of Railways) has entered into a collaboration with M/s. Mahataa Information India Private Limited (an Indian Subsidiary of Google Inc.) for the present, no direct investment has been made so far. The proposed investment will come in the form of providing technology, design and equipments required for providing Wi-Fi service.

Work of providing of Wi-Fi service within the scope of the collaboration is in progress at 100 category A1 and A stations, after which work at balance 300 category A1 and A stations shall be taken up. For B category stations Request For Proposal (RFP) issued and date of opening is 23.12.2015

This information was given by the Minister of State for Railways Shri Manoj Sinha in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.

Source: PIB News

Railways revises Child Fare Rule : New provision will come into effect from April, 2016

Ministry of Railways revises Child Fare Rule : New provision will come into effect from April, 2016

Ministry of Railways has decided to revise the child fare rule. Under the revised provision, full adult fare will be charged for children of age 5 years and under 12 years of age if for whom berth/seat (in reserved class) is sought at the time of reservation. However, in case berth/seat is not sought for the children of age 5 years and under 12 years of age at the time of reservation, then half of the adult fare shall continue to be charged subject to the minimum distance for charging.

Necessary changes shall be carried in the reservation form so that the passenger can indicate their option for requirement of full berth/seat for child or not.

There shall be no change in the rule for child fare of unreserved tickets i.e. fare for children of 5-12 years for unreserved tickets shall continue to be half of the adult fare subject to the minimum distance for charging.

Children under five years of age will continue to be carried free (without berth).

The revised child fare rule shall be applicable for travel from April, 2016 onwards. Exact date of commencement of this provision will be notified separately at a later date.

Source: PIB News

Acceptance of Diploma/Degree in Engineering prescribed for open market recruitment to posts on the railways — Duration of course regarding

Acceptance of Diploma/Degree in Engineering prescribed for open market recruitment to posts on the railways — Duration of course regarding

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

MINISTRY OF RAILWAYS

(RAILWAY BOARD)

RBE No.138/2015

No.E(NG)II-2013/RR-1/11

New Delhi, Dated 02/11/2015

The General Manager (P),

All Indian Railways & Production Units,

Chairman/Railway Recruitment Boards.

Subject: Acceptance of Diploma/Degree in Engineering prescribed for open market recruitnent to posts on the railways — Duration of course regarding

Instances have come to notice of this Ministry, wherein, candidates the written examination conducted by Railway Recruitment Boards are producing Diploma/Degree in Engineering of varied duration conducted by various institutions.

The matter has been looked into and it has been decided that henceforth a minimum of three year Diploma course in Engineering and a minimum of four year course in Engineering done after +2 shall only be accepted in addition to Diploma in Engineering obtained from Polytechnics. Instructions contained in Board’s letter No. dated 08.12.2011 still hold good.

Please acknowledge receipt.

sd/-

(Neeraj Kumar)

Director Estt. (N)-II

Railway Board.

Authority: http://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

Separate counters to women passengers for buying train tickets

Separate counters to women passengers for buying train tickets

Facilities for Women Passengers for buying Train Tickets at Reservation Counters

Ministry of Railways has been providing special facilities to women passengers for conveniently buying tickets at railway reservation counters. The Ministry has further elaborated facilities as follows: –

(a) At computerized reservation office, a separate reservation counter should be earmarked for ladies if the average demand per shift is not less than 120 tickets.

(b) In case, there is no justification for earmarking of exclusive counter for ladies, the requests received from ladies should be dealt with along with the reservation requests of the specific categories viz. senior citizen, physically handicapped, ex. MPs, MLAs, accredited journalists, freedom fighters etc.

(c) At those reservation offices where separate reservation counters have not been earmarked for ladies and also those locations which have not been computerized, ladies/female passengers should not be compelled to join the general queues and be attended to separately at the same counter as for general passengers. A suitable notice board about the availability of this facility should also be displayed near the reservation counter. This facility will however be available only from 11:30 hours to avoid misuse of this facility by unscrupulous elements to block accommodation during opening hours of general and Tatkal reservation.

(d) Ladies may be allowed to purchase tickets from these reservation counters irrespective of persons for whom the reservation is being sought. However, no other persons will be allowed to purchase ticket for them from these counters.

(e) As far as earmarking of separate unreserved ticket counters for ladies, zonal Railways have been asked to assess the demand and do the needful based on the same.

Source: PIB News

Indian Railways conducts survey on the consumer preference of Bedroll

Indian Railways conducts survey on the consumer preference of Bedroll

Ministry of Railways has started a survey on the consumer preference of bedrolls (bed-sheets, towel, pillow, blankets) required during the travel on trains. For this purpose, the Ministry of Railways has made available a detailed questionnaire Performa on the homepage of its own website www.indianrailways.gov.in for online submission of replies by the consumers.

The performa can be filled up online by 17th August, 2015. The questions asked in this survey include all aspects pertaining to bedrolls like cleanliness and hygienic conditions, colour preference, size preference, design preference, fabric preference, possible charges etc. etc. Consumers have been requested to spare some time and fill in the questionnaire.

It has been assured that the information so collected could be used only for research purpose and would remain private and confidential. Indian Railways has signed an MoU with National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) to work on quality and design of bedrolls and related issues. The survey has been designed in consultation with NIFT. The data collected through the survey will also prove to be as useful inputs in this exercise.

Minister of Railways Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu has always been emphasizing on having a better connect between the Railway Administration and the railway users and has been insisting on collecting passenger’s feedback on various issues with a view to improve passenger’s amenities and services in all respects. The present survey is in line with these directions.

Source : PIB News

IRTSA submitted an additional memorandum to 7th Pay Commission - Comparison of Group ‘B’ employees working in the Railways and other Central Government Departments

Comparison of Group ‘B’ Posts between the Railways and Other Central Govt Departments

A mild comparison of Group ‘B’ employees working in the Railways and other Central Government Departments as per the Census of 2001 and 2008. The Indian Railways Technical Supervisors Association(IRTSA) submitted an additional memorandum to 7th Pay Commission recently. The report is highlighted the situation of Group ‘B’ posts in Railways in last 14 years. We just reproduced the matter briefly for your information…

Meagre number of Group ‘B’ posts in Railways

Every department of central Government are increasing the number of gazetted posts for effective & efficient governance, Railways are not doing so inspite of huge need of it on Administrative & functional justifications and requirement thereof.

According to Census of Central Government employees published by Ministry of Labour, between the year 2001 and 2008 number of Group-B employees have increased to the tune of 35.65% from 1,59,517 to 2,47,822 despite of reduction of total number of employees to the tune of 24.5% from 38,76,395 to 31,11,610.

Click the image to view enlarge

Source: IRTSA

Click here to view the complete memorandum submitted to 7th Central Pay Commission by IRTSA

Debrai Committee Recommendations : Private companies in Railways

Privatization of Indian Railways – Bibek Debroy Committee Recommendations

Private companies in Railways: Debrai Committee Recommendations

“Roads are common for all. Keeping private players away from road transport services was impossible. But, until this day, railway tracks belong solely to the Government.”

Railway continues to be the best, safe and most economic means of transportation for the masses. Also undeniable is the fact that among the government-run organizations, Indian Railways are the only ones that are used by millions of Indians every day. Above 90% of Rail users of our country, who travel in general and sleeper classes, Railway Board should consider for them. The mere fact that the government is planning to privatize the railways is being criticized widely.

Everything that is run by private concerns – from buses to aeroplanes – cost more, according to 80% of the Indian population. You only need Rs.850 to travel all the way from New Delhi to Chennai. The fares are lower for senior citizens.

Traveling from Chennai to Nellore in a private bus would cost you Rs.1000. Depending on factors like weekends and festive occasions, the fares could be arbitrarily raised. The state and central government have failed to control these blatant violations. Amidst this chaos, the Debrai Committee is going to recommend that private companies be permitted to operate train services.

The Bibek Debrai Committee was constituted by Narendra Modi to streamline the functioning of Indian railway operations. The committee has submitted its report and recommendations to the government. The committee has suggested that private players be allowed to run trains and that private companies be permitted to manufacture railway bogies and engines.

There is no denial of the fact that some departments in the Indian Railways need serious reforms, it is saddening to see that all the recommendations are in favour of allowing private companies to enter this sector.

The following are some of the recommendations that have been welcomed:

The railways do not require separate accounts to be presented. An allocation of funds in the central budget is more than enough.

The number of zones and regions must be reduced.

The leaders and top management officials of these zones must be given enough powers to make some crucial decisions.

Each region should have some financial discretion.

Gazetted officers must be appointed as station masters of major railway stations.

Railway regulatory board must be constituted.

22% of the revenue generated by the railways is spent on pension. Instead, the committee has suggested that pension should be allocated from other funds, thereby easing the financial deficit of the railways. This has been welcomed by the railway labour unions.

Private telecom companies are making millions in profits, but BSNL is making losses. Similarly, if private companies are allowed to enter the railway sector, very soon, the government-owned trains will start incurring huge losses. The service offered by private companies might be good, but the fares will be phenomenal. Soon, this would make train journey unaffordable to the common man.

“Railways and the train tracks should always be owned by the Government alone. Please do not sell them away to private companies!”

Source: www.cgstaffnews.in