Making Railways Better - Additional Inputs

Dear Friends:

We have had two communications directly with the Railway Minister already and are encouraged by his responsiveness.

Below are the Key Issues, Root Causes and Solutions as identified by Citizens to Make Railways Better when the circle was smaller.

We will be taking a revised whitepaper to the Railways Minister. To that order, kindly advise if you have anything to add to the Issues, Root Causes or Solutions by responding to this post.

Thanks for your participation!
Rajendra Pratap Gupta



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Key Issues identified by Citizens:

1. Lack of cleanliness of coaches/ stations/ toilets
2. Unhygienic Food
3. Difficult online/offline ticketing systems
4. Lack of safety on tracks – accidents happen far too often
5. Corruption and discretion with TTE
6. Lack of timeliness of trains
7. Crowding of stations/platforms by people without travel and platform tickets

Key Root Causes identified by Citizens:

1. Railways has become too large an organization to be managed by the Government
2. Standards set for the railway employees to follow are very low
3. Infrastructure is not strong enough
4. No training and development programs – employees still belong to the old school of thoughts
5. The sense of cleanliness/ hygiene among the general public is missing
6. The stations/platforms cater to huge numbers and hence become tough to manage
7. No thorough quality checks on the pantry car
8. Modern safety/ communication equipment are missing which lead to fatal accidents.
9. Too much dependency on human feedback
10. Too much power vested with the TTE’s. Encouragement is also given by general public
11. Condition of the tracks is not in the prime state
12. A lot of people who are not even traveling are present on the platforms
13. Ticket windows to Customer ratio is very low
14. The online ticketing system is slow and outdated
15. Railways is still considered to be ‘cheap’ mode of transport and hence not much consideration is given to passenger comfort on the stations and inside the train
16. Lack of accountability of cleaning staff, faulty/negligent auditing system
17. Absence of credible grievance redressal mechanism
18. Touts make the ticket situation worse
19. Corruption in a large percentage of Railway contracts (Equipment Supply, Catering, Cleaning, etc.) leads to poor product/service quality
20. Passengers pull the emergency ‘stop’ chain without a valid reason.

Solutions Identified by Citizens:

1. Unauthorized entry of citizens without ticket or platform ticket must be stopped.
2. Local vendors and beggars must be banned on the platform and in the train
3. Awareness should be created among the general public about keeping railways and platforms clean
4. The cleaning staff needs to be made accountable for their work
5. Cleaning of stations and trains must be outsourced to private industry with service level contracts
6. Bigger dustbins in every compartment and they being emptied at every major station
7. Bio toilets should be scrapped and the ones like in aircrafts should be installed
8. The pantry car should be made to adhere to the highest standards and should go through regular quality checks
9. More staff be redeployed for train maintenance, discipline, and functions like cleaning, pantry, catering outsourced.
10. Railway tickets should have more distribution channels so it is easier for citizens to buy them
11. Performance of the IRCTC website should be significantly improved
12. Railways should acquire modern safety, monitoring and communication equipment to prevent accidents
13. Regular training and certifications made mandatory for train drivers
14. Anti-collision devices should be made mandatory in all trains
15. Regular behavioural training programs should be organised for the railway employees
16. An accessible via internet and mobile phone anti-corruption wing should be created to keep a check on the TTEs
17. Rationalization of ticket quotas for VIPs and railway employees at all levels
18. Strict actions should be taken against touts and middlemen
19. Every compartment should have a cap on the number of passengers allowed in
20. All major stations should have a pre-paid porter counter. more