Railway minister Suresh Prabhu on Thursday presented the Railway Budget for 2016-17. Emphasizing on technology, he offered that around 8.5 lakh crore would be spent over the next 5 years for modernization of railway infrastructure.
The tech highlights in the railway budget include:
- Social Media will be used to bring transparency
- Intent to commission Wi-Fi services at 100 stations this year, 400 by next year, Ties Up With Google
- GPS services which shows upcoming stations to be built inside coaches
- E-booking of tickets facility on the concessional passes available to journalists.
- Toilets to be cleaned via sms request
- 17,000 bio-toilets and additional toilets in 475 stations will be provided by end of this year
- Entertainment screens, automatic doors wil be installed
- A pilot of Bar-coded tickets to be introduced
- Railways contemplating on using drones and GPS for monitoring physically remote projects
- To enhance security, camera surveillance to be installed in all stations in phases.
- Tickets can be cancelled via phone calls
- 1,780 automatic ticketing machines, will be installed
- E-ticketing capacity will be enhanced from 2000 tickets per minute to 7,200 tickets per minute.
- Invite FM radio stations to provide train-borne entertainment via public address systems.
- Anti-collision device on all high density networks by next year
Too ambitious or is it the right time?
