Train passengers will now be able to book retiring rooms on hourly basis as railways today revised the current practice of 12/24 hours booking rule to cater to the growing demand for lodging facility at railway premises.
Besides, railways also decided to deploy a person as Train Superintendent in Trains responsible for all facilities to ensure improvement in onboard services.
The hourly booking of retiring rooms and making one person accountable for all onboard facilities on train will benefit passengers, said Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu while launching the two passenger-related service here.
Railways provide lodging facility through retiring rooms across the country.
The hourly booking service will be operational at four major stations at Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Surat and Vadodara. More staions will have such hourly scheme in a phased manner.
Currently, booking of retiring room is being done for the fixed slots of 24 and 12 hours along with fixed tariff for the respective slot.
As per the changed rule, retiring room can now be booked for the minimum three hours and maximum up to 48 hours.
Passenger can book retiring room for the desired period and it will result in effective use of retiring room, better utilization and also increase in revenue.
However, hourly booking will not allowed from 9 PM to 9 AM as one has to book the entire 12 hours period to avail the room. The tariff would be charged on hourly basis.
As far as Train Superintendent is concerned it will be like a nodal office responsible for all onboard facilities in a particular train.
It was launched as a pilot project for all Rajdhani trains originating from the capital.
Currently different agencies are to be approached for different types of facilities such as cleaning, electrical functioning and catering, provided in the train.
In order to save the passengers from bothering on various accounts, railways have decided to nominate Train Superintendent as a single person accountable for all facilities on train.
According to the plan, a senior TTE will become Train Superintendent and a seat will be earmarked for him in each train.
It will be a single window service and Train Superintendent (TS) will be responsible for all facilities on train and all concerned would assist the TS in supervision of onboard services and redressal of complaints.
All railway personnel and supervisors of outsourced
agencies involved in train services shall report to the TS for effective control and supervision to ensure improvement in onboard services offered by the national transporter.
Arrangement to display contact numbers of TS in all coaches for seeking any assistance will be provided at the start of the journey.
Passengers having complaints relating to water, AC, mobile chargers, bedrolls and linens, catering, punctuality of train or security related will be tackled by TS, he said.
A mobile application will be developed by CRIS which will facilitate easy transmission of information between the ground staff, onboard staff and the control offices enroute so that the TS can monitor the complaint being registered for the train while on run on real time basis.
