Lalu Prasad Yadav develops 2020 vision

The Rlys minister has upgraded the aam aadmi from cattle class to customer with a slew of passenger-centric amenities & plans

NEW DELHI: Lalu Prasad’s Garib Rath rolls on. The railway minister, known for his rustic charm and mass appeal, has not only made train travel more affordable in this election year, but has taken major initiatives to make the experience pleasant, comfortable and secure.

“Rail passengers are our revered guests,” the minister told Parliament, presenting the railway budget for 2008-09. He spelt out a set of new customer-centric and market-responsive strategic initiatives – starting from ending long queues at ticket counters to the “Go Mumbai Card” for the comfort of commuters.

And yes, some train fares have been cut once again: tickets costing less than Rs50 get a Re 1 discount; those above Rs50 get a 5% cut. AC First Class fares are down 7% and AC-II down 4%. Discounts on popular trains and busy season will be half of normal.
Prasad announced the introduction of 10 new Garib Raths and 53 pairs of trains. He also increased the service frequency of 11 trains and extended 16 trains to new destinations.  

But going beyond these customary budget announcements, he announced many passenger amenities, including the provision of discharge-free green toilets in all 36,000 coaches in the next four years at a cost Rs4,000 crore.

Increase in the height of a number of platforms, provision of platform shelters, provision of foot overbridges, and provision of multi-level parking, lifts and escalators at major stations are among the other initiatives.

The railways have clearly embarked on a smart business strategy, seeking to acquire a new profile. Treating 15 million people they move every day across the country as “customers” rather than loss-making “passenger traffic” would be central to this strategy. In other words, the aam aadmi will now move up from cattle class to a full-fledged customer.

The amazing story of the turnaround in railway finances in the past four years, which has become a case study for premier business schools, has now prepared the ground for the railways to offer the masses the nation’s most economical, efficient and profitable transport system.

Lakhs of poor people have enjoyed the comfort of air-conditioned travel in Garib Raths by paying a little more than non-AC sleeper fares. Just as ever-falling call charges have brought mobile phones within the reach of 30 crore Indians while helping phone operators become multi-billion dollar enterprises, the railways think they can play on volumes, drive down unit costs, reduce fares and increase market share to achieve record profits.

Last year, low-cost airlines helped the number of air travellers grow by over 30% in the country. Clearly, the railways lost some of its upper class travellers to the speed and affordability of airlines.

But that was more than compensated by train travel being accessible to a whole lot of other people. Not surprisingly, railways passenger earnings grew 14% (5.6% better than budgeted growth).

Prasad’s marginal reduction in fares is part of the larger strategy to win customers for the railways by bringing about an improvement in passenger amenities and services.
The train journey, as Prasad acknowledged, begins with the purchase of a rail ticket. He proposed to “permanently terminate” the long queues at ticket counters within two years.

“Passengers would now be able to purchase railway tickets sitting at home on their computers, through mobile phones, through counters in their own neighbourhood or automatic ticket vending machines at stations,” the minister said.

In the next two years, the number of unreserved ticketing system (UTS) counters will be increased five-fold to 15,000 and automatic vending machines will increase from 250 to 6,000. The Janasadharan Ticket Booking Seva will be extended to all zonal railways. This will provide employment to thousands of unemployed youth besides facilitating easy availability of tickets in the neighbourhood.

At present, e-tickets are issued against confirmed reservation. The facility will now be available to even waitlisted passengers. The number of passengers travelling on e-tickets is expected to increase three-fold to three lakh next year.

Rail ticketing through mobile phones could also become a reality soon. Prasad said the railways are “exploring the option” since there as already 30 crore cell phone users in the country and their number is expected to reach 50 crore by 2010.

The “Go Mumbai Card” scheme for issuing rail tickets, monthly season tickets and platform tickets on smart card through public private partnership will be commissioned by the end of next month.

The sale of bus tickets on BEST on this card has already started. These cards will be sold at stations, bus depots and other locations in the city. Only a marginal fee would be payable upon buying and recharging the card.

The Indian railway system, in a bid to become more people-friendly, will be implementing modern communications systems such as the global information system (GIS), global positioning system (GPS) and radio frequency identification (RFID).

“For getting maximum benefit in the coming years, the mantra for present and future IT applications would be seamless integration,” Prasad said.

Implementation of this system would enable the passengers to have fast and accurate information on a host of issues such as reservation status, train timings and availability of routes among others.

“For the customer it would result in superior experience with improvements in overall efficiency, safety of railway operations, ease of transactions and value-added services like infotainment, on-board television and knowledge kiosks with Internet facilities,” Prasad said.