It's Railways now, open call centres
29 November 2004, Times of India, Bangalore

Indian Railways Monday opened two experimental call centres offering service-related information through a single three-digit number -- 139 -- under a project to set up such centres in all major states.

Inaugurating the call centre for Karnataka here, Minister of State for Railways R. Velu said the integrated train enquiry system-cum-call centre would provide passenger-friendly services round-the-clock in three languages -- English, Hindi and the local language.

The other centre set up under the three-month-long pilot project was opened in Patna.

The railways will finish setting up the call centres in all metros and major cities in 12-18 months, the minister said.

Presently available on a Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) number, the railways planned to extend the service to other private sector providers including cellular operators, he said.

"After stabilising the two call centres and streamlining the range of services they will provide to millions of passengers in Karnataka and Bihar, we will set up more such centres in other states to cover all railway zones by 2006," Velu said.

Set up at a cost of Rs.6 million ($134,00), the Karnataka call centre will be operated by RailTel Corporation of India, a public sector enterprise under the ministry of railways, which looks after the communications needs of the railways.

"For every call made by passengers, the BSNL will pay 15 paisae to RailTel for recovering the cost of the call centres by the third year of operations.

"With about 40,000 passenger calls for enquiries and information on an average daily from all over Karnataka, we see the volume of traffic going up exponentially in the coming months once the call centre gains popularity," RailTel managing director K.K. Bajpayee told IANS.

"As against the eight-digit 37 conventional phone lines currently, the call centre would have 240 lines with user-friendly prompt facility for instant response to provide information related to passenger and train services, with voice recognition facility for station and train names."

Initially, the computerised centre will provide information on reservation status and arrival and departure for any train anywhere in the country, including the position of moving train, accommodation for any train, fares, concession and cancellation rules and information on special trains, Bajpayee said.

The railways plan to provide more types of information through the call centres in future, according to him.

"We will also make a provision for recording of public grievances to improve the services and add on more features," Bajpayee said.

The railways are in talks with cellular operators for extending the service to mobiles, including SMS (short messaging service).

As one of the world's largest monolithic organisations, Indian Railways carries daily about 13.5 million passengers across the country, operating over 1,200 trains and thousands of stations.

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