Railways launches time-scheduled container train, social media platform

Indian Railways on Wednesday launched the first time-scheduled container train service connecting Domestic Container Terminal, Okhla (Delhi) and Whitefield (Bengaluru), as part of the measures to improve services provided to customers.

Concor, the container cargo arm of the Railways, will be running two pairs of such container trains to start with, for running in the domestic sector between Delhi and Bangalore and Delhi and Chennai.

Regular weekly trains, one in each direction, will be run between these O-D pairs with transit times of 70 hours.

Minister of railways Suresh Prabhu also announced the launch of a liberalised comprehensive parcel leasing policy and a liberalised policy for parcel cargo express trains by remote control from Rail Bhawan.

The minister also launched integrated (Facebook & Twitter) social media platforms for grievance redressal by passengers, while also announcing the implementation of a policy allowing differently abled persons to avail concession while travelling without escort.

Speaking on the occasion, the railway minister said the Railways is diligently working for compliance of all the budget announcements and that these services are part of the year's Railway Budget. He said the Railways is not only launching services but is also being minutely monitoring their proper implementation.

Launching the integrated social media platform (Facebook & Twitter) for redressal of grievances, Prabhu said the Railways would soon bring two Apps - one for ticketing and the other for grievances redressal.

The new service targets a wide range of domestic piecemeal traffic for movement between these two O-D pairs, notable among which are steel tubes, food grains, ceramic tiles, polished granite slabs, rubber latex, plywood boards, alloys, electronic goods, chemicals, cars and automobile spares.

Concor estimates the volumes of containerised traffic in this sector to improve by 25–30 per cent with the introduction of assured transit times which would be improving by 45 per cent from present levels. Apart from price advantage and assured transit times of 70 hours in the above two O-D streams, rail transportation is going to be hugely advantageous being environment friendly.

With more than a million followers on Twitter, Indian Railways will now be interacting with its customers on Facebook through leveraging IT for prompt and speedy resolution of issues. The Railways has already been handling more than 7,000 tweets daily of various nature (complaints/suggestions/assistance).

The Integrated Social Media platform is made functional from Wednesday for the posts received on Twitter and Facebook.

''Any passenger or rail user can now post his grievance / suggestion/ assistance on our Facebook Page (Ministry of Railways - India). A system has been put in place to analyse the Facebook Post and the same will be forwarded internally to the concerned divisional railway manager (DRM) by the staff working round the clock in the Social Media Cell at Railway Board. Prompt action taken by the DRM on the grievance will be posted on the same page. This will be monitored at the Railway Board level in order to ensure that the grievances are redressed by the respective DRMs satisfactorily,'' Prabhu said.

The minister also announced extended concessional facilities for the differently abled persons.

Orthopaedically/paraplegic persons who cannot travel without an escort (At present concessional tickets issued only with escort) will be eligible for 75 per cent concessional fare in second, sleeper first, AC chair car  & AC 3 tier; 50 per cent concession in first class and AC 2-tier; 25 per cent concession in AC 3-tier & AC chair car of Rajdhani/Shatabdi trains; 50 per cent concession in monthly season ticket and quarterly season ticket.

One escort is also eligible for same rates of concession.

Mentally retarded persons who cannot travel without escort, blind persons travelling alone or with an escort, deaf and dumb persons (both afflictions together in the same person) travelling alone or with an escort will also be eligible for 50 per cent concession in second, sleeper and first  class; and 50 per cenyt in monthly and quarterly season ticket.

One escort is also eligible for same amount of concession.