Suresh Prabhu has 'derailed' the Railway Budget 2015: Congress

You can now book your tickets four months in advance, as against a period of two months currently. The window for reserved ticket booking will be raised to 120 days versus the 60 days now, Prabhu said.

"Today one of the biggest problems faced by the common man intending to travel in unreserved class is purchasing a ticket. We are introducing 'Operation Five Minutes' to ensure that a passenger travelling unreserved can purchase a ticket within five minutes. Provision of modified 'hotbuttons', coin vending machines and 'single destination teller' windows will drastically reduce the transaction time," Prabhu announced.

For the differently-abled travellers, a special initiative is being launched whereby they can purchase concessional etickets after one-time registration. "It is also proposed to work towards developing a multi-lingual e-ticketing portal. We will move towards crediting all refunds through the banking system," Prabhu said.

In Central Railway, Western Railway and Southern Railway suburban sections, a pilot project of issuing unreserved tickets on smart phones has been started.

"We hope to extend this facility progressively to all stations. Automatic ticket vending machines with smart cards and currency options have also been installed at many stations," Prabhu said. "It is proposed to proliferate this further and also to introduce debit card operated machines. Introduction of integrated ticketing system on the lines of rail-cum-road tickets on Jammu - Srinagar route will be expanded," he added.

Prabhu spared passengers from any hike in fares. For 10 years before 2012-13 there was no increase in rail fares. Then Railway Minister and Trinamool Congress leader Dinesh Trivedi had made an across-the-board hike in 2012-2013 but was made to roll back the hike in second and sleeper class categories.

Since then there have been hikes in passenger fares. Before the first Railway budget of the Modi government in July last, fares were increased by 14.2 per cent and freight rates by 6.5 per cent.

An all-India 24X7 helpline number, 138, will become functional to attend to the problems of passengers on a real time basis. Passengers will be able to call up for complaints while on trains.

A mobile application to redress Railway-related complaints is also being developed. Railways intend to start this facility on a pilot project basis on Northern Railway from March 1, 2015.

Based on the experienced gained and the feedback received from passengers, it will be extended to all Railways soon thereafter.

"Further, keeping in mind the criticality of security related issues, we have dedicated a toll-free number 182 for receiving security related complaints. Railways would utilise resources from the Nirbhaya Fund for augmenting security of our women passengers," Prabhu said.

To provide freedom to passengers to select their meals from an array of choices including local cuisine, e-catering has been introduced in 108 trains on an experimental basis from January this year. Food can be ordered through the IRCTC website at the time of booking of tickets.

"We are working to integrate the best food chains in our country into this project. Depending on the response from our customers, the facility will be extended to cover more trains," Prabhu said. "It is also intended to set up Base Kitchens in specified Divisions to be run by highly credible agencies for serving quality food," he added.

According to Prabhu, at the moment water vending machines are sparse. "We will expand this to cover most Railway stations. This will ensure availability of clean drinking water at very low cost to the people apart from being an environment friendly measure," he said.

Image: IRCTC thali