Under the leadership of Piyush Goyal India Railway has taken many path-breaking innovative steps to solve the existing problems. The unmanned crossings for security, 100 percent electrification were some of his steps which are transforming the face of Indian Railways. Now the Railways will introduce a biometric system for unreserved seats in to solve the crowd problem in the general compartments. The Central Railway (CR) will introduce the system for the trains originating from Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) and Lokmanya Tilak Terminus (LTT) in Mumbai.
This would help Indian Railways streamline the seating arrangement in general compartments and rectify the problem of passengers traveling without a ticket. The biometric would have details of the passenger and therefore it would also help to identify the anti-social elements. “We will soon invite tenders for the biometric system after which it will be formally implemented at LTT and CSMT,” said a Central Railway official.
The unreserved passenger would have to give his/her biometric details in advance. The person would get a token and based on the token number, the passenger will get in the queue. The passenger’s biometrics will be authenticated when he boards the train,” said the CR official. “The biometrics database will be retained for two months after which it will be deleted.”
The tenure of the Modi government has witnessed an amazing turnaround in various sectors. The Indian Railways has turned out to be one such department that has delivered in a big way as far as performance and safety in travel are concerned. The share of the Indian Railways in the total number of delayed projects has gone down in the last 5 years from 64.2% in April 2014 to 59.5% in December 2018. This indicates its success in completing railway projects.
The step to introduce the biometric-based ticketing for unreserved general compartments would end the corruption by TTEs. Earlier the Railways announced that the reservation charts for all trains will now be made public on the IRCTC website. Passengers will no longer have to run behind the TTE for vacant berths on the passenger trains. This historic step is aimed at ensuring greater transparency and eliminating corruption in the operation of passenger trains. Indian Railways has stated that this step will help the prospective passengers in getting information on any vacant berths that are available in the train after chart preparation. After this TTEs will not be able to deny berths on an ad-hoc basis.
Ever since the NDA government stormed to power in 2014, the transformation of the Indian Railways has turned out to be one of its major achievements. A number of features and innovative measures that have been incorporated by the national carrier have ensured that the Railways have become a better, safer and more convenient mode of travel. The credit for transforming the Indian Railways in the last one year or so must go the present Railways minister, Piyush Goyal. He has worked tirelessly towards improvement in rail travel and it can safely be said that his efforts are finally bringing about the desired results.
