PATNA: Railway is drafting guidelines to launch its ambitious project to book tickets through cellphones from July 1. According to a Railway Board official, though online ticket booking is already available to the people across the country, the cellphone ticket booking scheme is the first of its kind in railways.

According to sources, the Railway Board has approved the scheme and the RBI has given mandatory clearance to it. According to a Board official, railways has made a slight modification in the newly-developed software to check misuse of the scheme. Railways intends to make this scheme simple for cellphone users. A customer is required to download the application to book his journey ticket through cellphone, he said.

To make the project viable and popular among common people, railways would set up kiosks at different locations to help commuters to book their tickets. The system is similar to e-ticket booking. However, Java- enabled handsets will be required to access Internet to book tickets, sources said, adding delivery of tickets could be made through couriers or those having own mail ID could get the booked tickets online.

According to an IRCTC group general manager, under the new system passengers will get a reservation message with full details of the ticket including PNR, train number, date of journey, class and other details. The message received on cellphone would be treated on par with the printout of e-tickets, known as electronic reservation slip (ERS), he said.

Sources said the detailed procedure for booking tickets through cellphones is available on the IRCTC website . Mobile rail ticket booking services are based on the web services model developed by IRCTC to enable the users of cellphones to access the web-based rail ticket reservation inquiry services similar to www.irctc.co.in, IRCTC group GM said.

WITH new lime table coming into effect from July I there is hardly any change in waiting status for Nagpur travellers as the new services that were announced in Railway Budget are nowhere in sight. As per communication from Nagpur Division of Central Railway, the date of commencement of new services would be notified later.The notable changes includes change in timing of 12290 Nagpur-Mumbai CSTM Duronto Express that would now leave at 20.40 hrs instead 20.50 hrs. 12289 Mumbai CSTM-Nagpur Duronto will reach Nagpur now at 07.20 hrs instead of 07.15 hrs. 12194 Nagpur-lndore Express at 19.15 hrs (earlier 19.00). 12924 Nagpur-lndore at 19.15 hrs.The date of commence of new passenger train announced in Railway Budget. 51151 New Amravati-Narkhed Passenger train (Daily) would start from New Amravati-04.00 hrs. and reach Narkhed ai 08.30 his. Train No. 51152 Narkhcd-New Amravaii would start from Narkhed at 18.00 hrs and reach New Amravari-22.15 hrs.The long distance trains that would commence later are 11201 LTT- Ajni(Tue) 14.15 hrs. 11202 Ajni LTT (Fri) 16.15. 11203 Nagpur-Ajmer (Thu) 19.00. 11204 Ajmer-Nagpur(SaOI9.15.22631 Chennai-Bikaner((Mon)-14.45/14.55.22632 Bikaner-Chennai(Mon) 16.50/16.50. 12193 Yeshvantpur-Jahalpur(Mon) 13.45/13.55,12194 Jabalpur-Yeshvampur(Sat) 15.30/15.40. 18421 Puri-Ajmer (Tue. Fri) 17.50/18.10. 18422 Ajmer-Puri (Wed. Sal) 22.00/22.10. 22351 Patliputra-Yesvantpur (Sal) 18.20/1845, 22352 Yesvampur-Pailipuira(Tue) 10.20/10.30.18407 Puri-SainagarShirdi(Tue)
Yesvanlpur (Sun) 15.30/15.40. 18243 Bilaspur-Bhagat Ki Koti–Jodhpur ((Tue. Wed) 01.10/01.40.18244 Bhagai Ki Koli—Jodhpur (Mon. Wed) 04.40/05.10. 18245 Bilaspur-Bikaner (Fri, Sun)-01.10/01.40. 18246 Bikaner-Bilaspur (Mon. Wed)-04.40/0.510. more details available at www.resultshub.netSimilarly the increase in frequency Of these trains too would be notified later (the days in bold indicate new days of service after notification). They are 11453 Ahmedabad-Nagpur (Sun. Thu. Tue) 12.15. 11454 Nagpur-Ahmedabad (Sat. Wed. Sun) 09.35. 12I59/12I60 Jablpur-Amravati-Jabalpur would to run daily-06.25/06.30 & 03.40/03.50. 22687/22688 Dchradun-ChaiKligarh-Madurai (Mon. Fri).

New Delhi, June 11: Come July and you can book your train ticket by sending an SMS. Keeping an eye on the growing mobile phone market in India, IRCTC will launch SMS-based ticketing from 1 July and a dedicated number will be announced soon for this.

Describing the step as environment-friendly as no print-out is required, a senior IRCTC official said “mobile-based booking provides the users ease and convenience of booking tickets from anywhere and anytime. There will be no requirement of a printout because the ticketing message will be considered as valid during the journey.” As per the requirement, one has to register the mobile number with IRCTC as well as one’s bank. The Bank provides MMID (Mobile Money Identifier) and OTP (one time password) for authorisation of payment. The official said SMS booking is very simple as a passenger has to type the train number, destination, journey date, class and passenger details like name, age and gender on the SMS box. “The sender will receive transaction ID and then make payment through sending another SMS Nowby typing PAY followed by the transaction ID, MMID as received from the bank and password, said the official adding “with this the passenger’s ticket is booked.” The service is available to all mobile subscribers and Rs 3 is being charged per SMS and payment gateway charges are Rs 5 for ticket amount up to Rs 5000 and Rs 10 for more than Rs 5000.

In an effort to ease its ticketing services to facilitate passengers and to tap the mobile phone market, Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC),a public sector undertaking of the ministry of railways, will be launching  a pilot project of ticketing through non-internet-based mobile phones with effect from July 1 onwards.

The project will enable people using non-internet based mobile phones to easily access railway ticketing services through SMS/Interactive Voice Response System/ Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD). “The scheme is user-friendly, secure and also eco-friendly, as no print out is required,” a railways ministry statement said. The plan was announced in the railways Budget this year.

Special trains have been started by the Ministry of Railways in the rain devastated Uttarakhand. The trains will be run from Haridwar to Delhi, Lucknow and Mumbai. With the help of the government of Uttarakhand, Indian Railways will help stranded passengers reach destinations free of cost. Special trains have also been started for evacuation purposes and special officers are deployed at Dehradun, Rishikesh, Haridwar and New Delhi. Special railway helpline numbers along with paramedical and railway police personnel have been deputed at these locations. A special task force has also been set up under the Railway Board chairman Vinay Mittal to monitor the situation. Railways have also set up additional booking and enquiry counters, along with adequate arrangement of catering and drinking water facilities. Frequent Announcements through public address system regarding status of trains and other passenger related services has also been set up at Haridwar, Rishikesh and Dehradun.

RailRadar™ is a live tracker of Indian Railways passenger trains traffic in real time. This live tracker is shown on an interactive map and allows users to watch the movements of trains which are currently running in entire India. RailRadar™ is an outcome of innovation of Indian Railways Center for Railway Information System (CRIS). Use this Railradar online Tracking services to locate the Indian Railways passenger trains traffic in real time

In an innovative step that will generate employment and ensure service, IRCTC has announced a new tatkal ticket booking system that won’t hang at the last minute.

“After unending complaints about ‘service unavailable’ and ‘connection error’ troubles, we have been able to figure out the problem – internet,” an Indian Railways official told Faking News, “Therefore, we are reducing this dependency on internet for booking the tickets and going back to tried and tested way of booking tickets – standing in the queue.”

“No, no, you don’t have to physically stand in the queue. You can still book tickets using your IRCTC login and at the comfort of your home,” the official clarified.

Such rail reservation counters will see a lot of activity in coming days

As per the new system, an IRCTC user will have to enter details such as travel route, date of travel, class of travel, and choose a particular train, before he is taken to page that would list ‘volunteers’ who would stand in the queue to book tickets on behalf of the user.

“These volunteers will be employed by the Indian Railways and the IRCTC website will list their ‘success rates’ in booking tickets – similar to success rates shown currently for payment gateways,” the IRCTC official explained.

The volunteers will charge premium for their services, which will include waking up early in the morning, running to the nearest railway reservation counter, booking the tickets successfully, and delivering it to the user’s address.

“Volunteers belonging to the weaker sections of the society will be able to jump the queue and charge higher premium for his or her services,” the official underlined how the government’s intervention will bring fundamental changes to the original system of standing in the queue to book tickets.

The official further revealed that Indian Railways swill retain a portion of the premium to meet the operational costs of the IRCTC website.

“Ummm… yes, you may say so,” the Indian Railways official reluctantly conceded when this reporter wondered if this didn’t amount to regularizing touts and unauthorized agents.

“But this is not so shocking. Government regularizes even unauthorized colonies built by builder mafia. We are merely trying to help people and not endangering anyone’s lives!” the official justified the decision.

“It also solves the problem of too many people logging in the IRCTC website as soon as the tatkalwindow opens. The real rush will be offline – among the volunteers, while a user can place his order for tickets anytime at his or her convenience.”

“And look at the brighter side; anyone can become a tout… errr… I mean, a volunteer now. This will create jobs for the youth. We are calling it Rahul Gandhi Railways Swayam Sevak Yojna,” the official said.

The railway minister Pawan Bansal, has made an announcement with an aim to increase the traffic holding of the website, increase in the count of users over the website, to upgrade the Indian rail ticket booking website

on the latest technology to handle more than 1 Lakh users on a real-time. As per Indian Railway minister Pawan Bansal, few features going to add that you might be interested in. Presently, Irctc.co.in was working on a capacity of handling 40,000 visitors at a time and user can book 2,000 Indian railways tickets every minute which has now been increased to 7,200 tickets.

NEW DELHI: You can no longer cancel a train ticket 24 hours before your journey and still claim a full refund.

The railways ministry, which comprehensively revised ticket refund rules on Tuesday, said the move was aimed at stopping touts from selling cancelled tickets at high prices at the last moment and at giving waitlisted passengers a little extra time to comprehend whether they could undertake their journey.

The new rules will come into effect from July 1.

The railways said it had also reduced the time wherein a passenger could claim back 75 per cent of the booking amount. For this, passengers will now need to cancel tickets six hours prior to departure, two hours fewer than earlier.

If a ticket is presented for cancellation within six hours before the train’s scheduled departure and up to two hours after the actual departure, the cancellation charge will be 50 per cent of the fare, subject to a minimum charge. Exiting rules allow the cancellation of tickets up to 12 hours after the train’s departure if the journey distance is 500 km or more. Under the new rules, no refund will be granted on a reserved ticket surrendered for cancellation two hours after the train’s actual departure.

The time for the filing of refund claims in case of unforeseen circumstances like a strike or any natural causes such as floods has also been reduced from 90 to 10 days of the train’s departure.

According to the new rules, even those with waitlisted or RAC tickets will have to cancel their tickets three hours before actual departure to get a refund after the deduction of a clerkage charge of Rs 30.

No refund will be allowed two hours after the train’s departure. Existing rules permit cancellation till three hours after departure.

Justifying the revision, the railway ministry said: “Railway Passengers (cancellation of ticket and refund of fare) Rules, 1998, have not been substantially revised in the last 15 years, during which a large number of changes have taken place in the ticketing system of Indian Railways.”

South Central Railway introduced Eco-friendly Bio-toilets system in trains under South Central Railway Zones.These are all part for improving the cleanliness in the railway premises.

South Central Railway already made the trials with Bio-toilets System. 166 Bio-toilets have already been fitted to 55 coaches of various trains.The trains with Hussain Sagar Express and Padmavati Express has this facility. Secunderabad-Tirupati-Secunderabad Padmavati Express has become the first train running completely with Bio-toilets on South Central Railway zones.

The process of setting up another 110 Bio-toilets on 32 coaches on identified trains will complete in July 2013. South Central Railway is planning to implement 192 more bio-toilets during the current financial year.

Airtel Money, the mobile wallet from Bharti Airtel, has tied up with Indian Railways Catering And Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) to offer mobile based ticket reservations for over 185 million customers country wide.

Besides booking tickets via Airtel Money, customers using Airtel connections can search for stations, trains, availability, PNR enquiry, cancellation by dialing *400# to access a USSD system, without worrying about the kind of handset or about paying data or SMS charges. USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) technology will prompt users with interactive and guided menu options towards booking tickets.

PUNE: The administration of the Central Railways has revised the timings of two express trains and some local trains which start from thePune station, Shivajinagar station and Kolhapur station.

The new timings will come into effect from Monday onwards. Railway officials have said the timings have been changed for the benefit of passengers.

According to the new schedule, the Pune-Karjat passenger train will leave from Pune station at 11.15 am, instead of 11.45 amwhich is 30 minutes before the current timing. The train will halt at all stations and will reach Lonavla at 1.17 pm followed by Karjat at 2.15 pm. The timing of the train’s arrival has also been changed where it will leave Karjat station at 3.10 pm, which is 15 minutes early from the previous timing. It will reach Pune station at 6.15 pm.

Timings of four local trains have been changed. The local train which starts from Shivajinagar station at 10.50 am will leave at 11.20 am from Monday. It will reach Lonavla at 12.35 pm. Two other local trains which start from the Pune station in the evening will also have a new schedule. The local train which is scheduled at 8.05 pm will now leave at 8 pm and the train that starts at 9.05 pm has been scheduled at 8.57 pm. Also, the local scheduled to leave from Lonavla at 7.35 pm for Pune station, will now leave at 7.35 pm.

The timing of the Pune-Ahemdabad Duronto express has also changed. The train will now leave the Pune station 10 minutes early at 9.35 pmas against the old time of 9.45 pm. It runs three days a week – Monday, Thursday and Saturday- from Pune. However, the timing of Ahmedabad-Pune Duronto express will remain the sameas now. Also, the Nagpur-Kolhapur express will now reach the Miraj station at 8.50 pm.

The railway administration said three new trains will run via Pune soon. These new trains were announced in the railway budget 2013-14. Detailed timings of the trains will be announced later. The trains include CSTM-Solapur daily express, LTT-Karkail weekly express, LTT-Kakinada bi-weekly express and LTT-Hubli weekly express. Besides, the Pune-Indore express will now run four times a week, according to the new time-table.

How to Book Rail Tickets by SMS, mobile phone without Internet?

Jaganmohan Krishnamoorthy’s insight:
How to Book Ticket by Phone:To access the system, a user will have to get a mobile money account opened from his/her bank or through mobile money providing agencies, as approved by the Reserve Bank of India.

Users can also book tickets through the railways helpline number 139. Currently, it is available on BSNL phones but soon be extended to private mobile service providers.

User should have the following:1. BSNL SIM card installed.2. Java enabled mobile phone.3. Andhra Bank Prepaid card.

This is a menu driven application where user has to enter the details asked for in simple step-by-step process to get the ticket.
Registration• Install the application.• Select the Register option to get the mPIN.
Booking• Click the icon BSNL Prepaid Card• Select Ticketing > Train (IRCTC)• Fill up the journey details such as From stn, To Stn, Train No, DOJ, Class, Quota, passenger details.• Enter the mPIN to get the ticket information.• Charges: No PG Charges. Agent / IRCTC Service Charges: As applicable.

The National Institute of Design (NID) has added another feather to its cap by designing the logo for Indian Railways’ finance institute. The logo has been designed by a team of NID faculties headed by Professor Immanuel Suresh and including professor Tarun Deep Girdhar. The team took one month to finalise the design.

The Indian Railway Institute of Financial Management (IRIFM) was announced during the 2013-14 Railway budget while the foundation stone was laid on June 3 by Railway Board financial commissioner Vijaya Kamath at Muala Ali in Secunderabad.
Talking about the logo, Girdhar said it was designed keeping in mind the growth of Indian Railways.

“The IRIFM logo reflects the desire for achieving excellence in professionalism, leadership and teamwork. The four vertical small boxes represent institution building while the longer parallel lines portray the Indian Railways,” said Girdhar. He added: “The logo symbolises a flight of progress through precision, efficiency and propriety.”
The IRIFM has been started to provide structured and professional training to finance and accounts officers of Indian Railways and equip them with necessary skills.

Such trainings would be conducted at regular intervals to promote knowledge of a high order and set the highest standards of professionalism and creativity for the betterment of Indian Railway finances.
Other than the logo design, NID faculties are also working closely on various Indian Railways projects.

Aboard Kolkata Rajdhani: I am writing this lying on my berth on the New Delhi-Howrah Rajdhani Express and even though Indian Railways claims that it offers free WiFi on this train, my phone (on which I am typing this) is connected via 3G/Edge. This in itself indication enough what my experience has been with this Indian Railways WiFi-on-wheels pilot project.

The announcement was made years ago and rolled out almost two months back. Two months is more than enough time to get over any teething troubles. But no.

The way this service has been set up is reminiscent of most sarkari projects in our country. More so in the railways. Grandiose in ideas but unwieldy in implementation.

Indian Railways will make you fill in your entire bio-data to give you in exchange free WiFi.

First they make you fill in your entire bio-data to give you in exchange free WiFi. You will have to share your name, complete address, mobile number, email ID, PNR, seat number, coach ID, type of government ID card in possession and number of the ID card. Phew!

In many other places offering free WiFi only the mobile number suffices.

Form filling is what our government wants its citizens to waste their time on and WiFi on Indian trains is no different. And quite like many of our sarkari initiatives, diligent form-filling is no guarantee for delivery of services.

The long wait for the SMS with the all-important password to finally arrive only led to yet another wait for the login webpage to accept my credentials. When after a few minutes it did, I thought I would be on my way cruising on the high-speed information tracks, byt my dreams were derailed right at the originating station.

Even though the signal strength at my berth displayed as ‘good’, websites simply refused to open on the browser and tweets, after multiple failed attempts at being sent, resigned themselves to drafts. I also gave up and switched back to my mobile data plan. Even though I am outside my home network, the roaming costs will not be as deterring as the Indian Railways’ WiFi speed that brought back memories of the dial-nmup days, where every attempt at connecting to the Internet and accessing websites further honed our patience.

Wait! Dial-up was actually better. Even if it was slow, things moved. Here inside the chilling A5 compartment of the 12306 Kolkata Rajdhani everything is swaying with the running train except for the progress bar on the mobile phone browser.

Delhi: Much to the delight of train passengers, the Railway Ministry has decided to launch a pilot project of booking meals through Internet in selected trains on Delhi-Jammu and Delhi-Amritsar route. You can book your pizza or pasta through Internet before boarding a train and food will be delivered at your seat during the journey. “We are trying to provide a variety of meals to passengers during train journey and for this we will soon be having an arrangement with some popular food chains,” a senior Railway Ministry official involved with the project told media. As per the proposal, a passenger will be offered to book his meal by giving his name, coach and berth number of the train on an Internet booking site and the food will be delivered at his seat at a particular station. “There will be choices like biryani, pizza, pasta, burger and sandwiches among others which are otherwise not available in pantry cars of trains. Some reputed food outlets will be roped in to cater to the demands of passengers,” said the official, adding “payment will be made after delivery of food.” However, the official clarified that the service is not meant for Rajdhanis, Durontos and Shatabdis because the fares include the food served in these trains. A meeting was held at Rail Bhawan last week with officials of CRIS and IRCTC to explore the possibility of booking meals through Internet. It was decided at the meeting that a pilot project for booking meals through Internet would be launched on a few selected trains on Delhi-Jammu and Delhi-Amritsar routes to begin with, said the official. The official further said that a decision will be taken shortly whether to create a new site or to provide a separate link on the existing ticket booking site of the IRCTC for it. A supplier agency will also be selected for providing delivery service on trains through a bidding process. Currently about 10 lakh passengers avail catering facility daily at stations and trains, while 302 Mail and Express trains have pantry cars. (PTI inputs)