The Rail Budget 2016-17 presented by Suresh Prabhu on Thursday in Lok Sabha was high on technological front. The railway minister took the hand of technology to put the Indian railways on a speedy track to advancement and development. Overall, the budget, which had no hike in fares, received rave reviews from all quarters.
The top 6 technology related announcement made for the Indian railways in the lower house in Rail Budget 2016-17 are as follows:
1) Radio Stations -
Understanding the entertainment need of commuters waiting to board their trains on the train stations, the railway minister has invited the nation's radio stations to provide their entertainment services through the Indian railway's personal address system on various railway stations. FM radio stations for trains are also a part of the plan.2) Clean my coach service -
What's the one thing that concerns the majority while travelling through trains? Hygiene! Yes, the cleanliness of the toilets and the coaches is one of the main reasons many prefer other transport options rather than choosing the railways. The Railway Minister has understood this problem and has launched a new SMS service through which passengers will now be able to make a request for cleaning their coaches. All they will have to do is to drop a message with their PNR number at 58888 and the cleaning staff will attend to their needs at the next station.3) GPS based display -
One of the announcement made in the railway budget was the installation of GPS based 20,000 displays across 2,000 railway stations. This feature will keep the passengers informed about the upcoming stations and also help the government in keeping a track of the arrival and departure of trains. As and when implemented, travelers will be able to see less delay in trains as the government will keep an eye on every train.4) Ticketing capacity -
The IRCTC website for long has been in the news for all the wrong reasons but that's going to change in the coming future it seems. The Railway Ministry has announced that it will increase online ticket booking capacity to 7,200 per minute from the current 2,000 tickets.5) Wi-Fi- Internet -
Internet is the glue that joins us with the rest of the world while we're travelling. Recognising this, the Ministry has plans of setting up free Wi-Fi services in over 100 railway stations across India by the end of 2016. In fact, the Ministry in association with Google has already enabled Wi-Fi at the Mumbai Central railway station. They plan to install Wi-Fi in nearly 400 stations by 2017.6) Automated ticket vending machines -
In order to decrease the never-ending lengthy lines at the ticketing counters, the railway ministry plans to install 1,780 automated ticket vending machines. Further, the curb the numbers of ticketless travelers, a provision to have bar-coded tickets is also in the pipeline.
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