Railways to soon sign MoU with ISRO for using Geospatial, satellite technologies

Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu today said for using geospatial technology and satellite technology for various operations of Railways, a Memorandum of Understanding will soon be signed between the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) (the IT arm of the Ministry) and Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

Launching three IT initiatives by organising video-conferencing between, Rail Bhawan and New Delhi Station, he said safety and security of passengers was of paramount importance of his ministry.

At the New Delhi Station, Minister of Science and Technology and Earth Sciences Harsh Vardhan, Lok Sabha MP from the New Delhi constituency Meenakshi Lekhi, General Manager Northern Railways A K Puthia and others were present.

At the Rail Bhawan were present Chairman, Railway Board, A K Mital, Member Traffic Kundan Sinha, Additional Member (IT) Jamshed , Managing Director, CRIS Ms Vandana Nanda and senior officials of the Railways. Launching the initiative, Mr Prabhu said it was a proud moment for the Railway in the quest for providing efficient services to the passengers.

Mr Prabhu said the paperless unreserved ticketing mobile application was in line with the Prime Ministers Digital India.

The Minister said the IT applications which were inaugurated today were an indication that Indian Railways was constantly moving towards e-Governance.

''In April and June we had launched Paperless Unreserved Ticketing System for Chennai and Mumbai suburban sections. Today this has been launched for New Delhi-Palwal section of Northern Railway. This system shall now be proliferated to other important suburban sections of Eastern Railway, South Eastern Railway and South Central Railway shortly,'' Mr Prabhu said.

He said Introduction of Coin-cum-Currency operated Ticketing Vending Machine was another step forward in ensuring that passengers get their tickets quickly under Operation five minutes announced in Railway Budget. These ticket vending machines should be installed at all major stations in the country. 450 machines are being procured and installed by CRIS and shall be available at major stations during the next three months.

The Railway Minister said, ''The Freight Monitoring App named Parichaalan is another development towards improving operating efficiency through improved Management Information System. This App shall greatly help the senior decision makers of Operating Department to plan freight operations on real time basis. After the initial experiment, this App shall be provided to other operating officers in the field''.

Recalling the other initiatives launched by the Ministry, the Minister said that improvements have been brought about in e-ticketing segment especially automatic refund during cancellation of trains, development of Hindi e-ticketing portal and integration of customer services on single portal. SMS Alert System to inform passengers about arrival and departure of trains, all India helpline and Mobile App for woman security have also been launched recently in Mumbai and Kolkata.

The three initiatives launched by the Minister were: Paperless unreserved ticketing through mobile phone between New Delhi Palwal Section (NR), currency coin cum card operated automatic ticket vending machines at New Delhi Railway Station and mobile application for freight operations (Parichaalan). UNI RBE AE SB 1951