BJP’s ‘make railways better’ portal a big hit

Srinand Jha, Hindustan Times  New Delhi, October 09, 2014

Material for uniforms for Railway Protection Force (RPF) personnel and other employees can be purchased from the National Textile Corporation. This would help break the government/suppliers nexus and also help revive the finances of the NTC mills.

Fixing a hot forged metal clamp over the joints on rail tracks can substantially help reduce noise. Why doesn’t the Railways do away with the system of free passes, which are mostly being misused?
These, among others, are suggestions that have been uploaded on an online circle called ‘Make Railways Better’ — an initiative of a portal called ‘Local Circles’.

Local Circles — which has a partnership with the Bharatiya Janata Party Information Cell — today has a membership of 1,76,000 citizens across six online communities for the exchange of views and for developing constructive inputs on “how to improve governance and transform India”.
As a result of the collective effort, the portal has already published white papers on several themes including women and child safety, fighting corruption and increasing transparency and curbing price rise and inflation.
“The online circle on the Railways was launched only one-and-a-half months ago, but the response has been phenomenal. We already have enough material to bring about four-five theme-based white paper on the subject,” Local Circles founder Rajendra Pratap Gupta told HT.
“Given Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s interest in modernising the Indian Railways by ushering in a restructuring plan, we believe our inputs will supplement the efforts of the government,” said Paritosh Vyas, co-convenor of the BJP Information Cell.