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Steps to upgrade railway services
THE INDIAN Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) is augmenting the e-ticket scheme and planning to establish centralised call centres for railway inquiry apart from rolling out attractive tourism packages aimed at middle-class, said the Managing Director (MD) of IRCTC, Dr P K Goel, who inaugurated the regional office of the corporation here on Friday.
THE INDIAN Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) is augmenting the e-ticket scheme and planning to establish centralised call centres for railway inquiry apart from rolling out attractive tourism packages aimed at middle-class, said the Managing Director (MD) of IRCTC, Dr P K Goel, who inaugurated the regional office of the corporation here on Friday.
He said that ‘139’ would be the sole number that could be dialled by anybody in the country to get information regarding train timings anywhere, ticket confirmation and even route planner at a later stage.
Goel said that features like SMS alert for delay in train timings and hotel booking are also in the pipeline. Besides, the upcoming schemes of cell phone companies to pay through their phone could be used for buying ticket. As a pilot project, the home delivery of tickets has been started in Delhi to test its feasibility.
By February end the call centre at Chennai would start functioning while the three other centres would also start working by March/April. No city code would be needed to dial before 139, and in case of load on particular call centre, the other calls would be directed to other centre.
Regarding a query that often calls are not picked, Goel said that the companies running the call centre would get paid on the basis of calls they would entertain.
The IRCTC MD said that e-ticket scheme has been upgraded and now around 30,000 e-tickets are delivered under the scheme nationwide.
The tickets would soon be available in ATMs of selected banks, post offices and petrol pumps, he said. Goel said that like the ‘Palace on Wheels’ train, ‘Southern Splendour’, ‘Punjab Luxury’, ‘Karnataka Luxury’ and ‘Royal Heartland’ trains would be rolled out soon to tap the tourist potential in various parts of the country.
The IRCTC is trying to improve the quality of food and hygiene. Goel said that water vending machines would be installed so that high-quality chilled mineral water could be filled in empty bottles at just Rs 3.
Of the proposed 100 budget hotels, the construction at Habibganj would start soon. Goel inspected the site today and also made an inspection of the Food Plaza apart from inaugurating a stall at Bhopal station.
Goel admitted that quality of food in Shatabdi Express was poor and he had received lot of complaints but ensured a turnaround in the next few months.
“Regarding complaints pertaining to over-charging and lack of hygiene, the complaints could sent at feedback on the website and the action is taken immediately”, he assured.
