Travelling by trains is getting riskier by the day as crimes under Indian Penal Code (IPC) witnessed an increase of over 34% in two years, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report for 2016.

Incidence of IPC crimes, which include murder, rape, rioting, kidnapping and robbery among others, registered by Government Railway Police (GRP) in 2016 was 42,388 in comparison with 39,239 in 2015 and 31,609 in 2014.

Indian Railways will soon bring for cabinet clearance an ambitious, Rs. 18,000 crore ($3 billion) plan that involves fencing off the existing Delhi-Kolkata and Delh-Mumbai routes to speed up train movement in the country’s two busiest corridors.

Besides fencing, the proposal involves track and signalling upgrades and elimination of unmanned level-crossings along the two major trunk routes — Delhi-Mumbai at 1,384 kms Delhi-Howrah at 1,450 kms.

The cabinet is expected to consider the plan next month.

“The proposal has already been cleared by the extended Railway Board, NITI Aayog and the Finance Ministry. Now it awaits Cabinet clearance — after which the project will commence,” a senior Railway Ministry official said.

The ambitious project envisages taking train speeds up to 160 km per hour in the busy corridors.

While the overall cost for the Delhi-Kolkata route is estimated at Rs. 7,000 crore, that of the Delhi-Mumbai corridor is Rs. 11,000 crore. Of this, fencing alone will cost about Rs. 2,200 crore.

Fencing is a must for semi-high speed corridors as it prevents human or cattle interference on the tracks and ensures higher speeds and safety.

Describing it as a “paradigm shift” for the development of the rail network in the country, the official said once the route is fit for 160 kmph, the speed can be further upgraded up to 200 kmph.

According to the feasibility study, it is a remunerative project with both routes having a high rate of return.

The official said that while the rate of return for the Delhi-Howrah route — which runs through major cities such as Kanpur and Lucknow — has been estimated at 18 per cent, it has been pegged at 14.7 per cent for the Delhi-Mumbai corridor that has cities such as Vadodara enroute.

Currently, train speeds are greatly affected by network congestion. While the Railways is constructing dedicated freight corridors for the exclusive movement of the goods service, fencing off the existing Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Kolkata routes will enhance passenger movement on the existing tracks.

The Indian Railways said today it has terminated the contracts of 15 caterers and debarred 16 catering contractors this year till November amidst complaints of over-charging and poor quality food served on trains.

The ministry, which often receives complaints from passengers over catering issues on its official Twitter handle, is known to respond to them on real-time basis.

According to the official data, the national transporter has imposed fines amounting to Rs 8.96 crore from January to October 2017, which was more than double the amount – Rs 4.05 crore – levied last year between January and December.

“The ministry is very concerned about complaints regarding catering. We have given instructions that strict action must be taken against those caterers against whom complaints are made and proven. We have zero tolerance towards such issues regarding food on our trains,” said Railway Ministry spokesperson Anil Saxena.

Vinod Kumar Yadav, General Manager, South Central Railway called upon to focus on up gradation of  infrastructure facilities to ensure safety and punctuality of train operations. He conducted intensive review meeting on Safety, Punctuality and freight loading today i.e., 11^th December, 2017 at Rail Nilayam, Secunderabad along with Principal Heads of Departments. The Divisional Railway Managers (DRMs) of all the 6 Divisions on SCR viz., Secunderabad, Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Guntur, Guntakal and Nanded joined the meeting through Video Conference.

Vinod Kumar Yadav, speaking on infrastructural developmental aspect,  suggested DRMs to focus on up gradation of  all the staff training institutes in  the zone on priority basis. He advised officials to adopt advance teaching methods and training technology to enhance the skills of staff as part of ensuring safety.

Vinod Kumar Yadav, held a review of all the safety aspects on the Zone including minor incidents of unusual happenings like yard derailments, weld failures, rail fractures and gate open cases etc., He instructed the officials to concentrate on the works related to safety to avoid all unsafe working conditions to bring the zone to incident free zone in terms of safety. Vinod Kumar Yadav while reviewing the punctuality of the zone, stated that, the unscheduled traffic blocks will effect the punctuality of the zone and instructed the officials to properly plan and strictly avoid traffic block bursts.

The General Manager also reviewed the works related to elimination of Unmanned level crossings (UMLCs) over the zone and instructed to achieve the targets within the prescribed time frame and complete the pending procedures of tenders related to UMLC gates. He held a detailed review of the performance in freight loading over the zone and instructed all the DRMs to improve the loading and reach the target. Earlier General Manager released  SCR Booklet on Instructions for New Line Opening/Electrification/Double/Triple Quadruple lines.

John Thomas, Additional General Manager; K.V.Siva Prasad, Principal Chief Engineer; N. Madhusudana Rao, Principal Chief Operations Manager; Smt. Padmini Radhakrishnan, Principal Financial Advisor (PFA); M.G.Sekharam, Principal Chief Commercial Manager; Vinay Mohan Shrivastava, Principal Chief Signal & Telecommunications Engineer; Arjun Mundiya, Principal Chief Mechanical Engineer; D.K.Singh, Principal Chief Safety Officer; N.V. Ramana Reddy, Principal Chief Personnel Officer; Dr. K.H.K.Dora, Principal Chief Medical Director and Sanjay Sankrityayan, Chief Security Commissioner were amongst the Officials present.

To make train ticket booking facility “quick and easy”, Indian Railways has introduced a facility that enables users to pay for tickets at railway counters through UPI/BHIM app. This facility was already available for passengers who wanted to book tickets online through IRCTC, the e-ticketing arm of the Railways. In a tweet, Union IT minister said, “Now you can book railway tickets and pay using UPI/BHIM App. Railway bookings becomes quick and easy.”  The minister also highlighted the benefits of paying for Railway tickets through UPI/BHIM App: “No worry of losing cash and card, easy to use and supports payment through multiple banks and safe to use as no need to share bank account or credit card number.”

harat Interface for Money or BHIM app is developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), based on the Unified Payment Interface (UPI). The BHIM app is inter-operable with other Unified Payment Interface (UPI) applications and bank accounts. In less than a year, the number of daily transactions through BHIM app has reached 2.8 lakh.
Train Ticket Reservation Through BHIM/UPI: 10 Things To Know

1) The facility to book train tickets at railway counters though the BHIM app was implemented from December 1, 2017.

2) The Railways said this facility will be available for booking of reserved tickets from Passenger Reservation System (PRS) counters and season tickets (monthly/quarterly) from Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS) counters.

3) There would be no transaction charges for a period of three months from passengers for the new train ticket booking facility.

4) Passengers will be able to receive information on the fare to be paid at the railway counters by sharing their travel details..

5) If a customer opts to pay through UPI/BHIM, the counter person will select UPI as payment option and request for passenger’s Virtual Payment Address (VPA).

6) The railway counter person will enter the Virtual Payment Address (VPA) to initiate the transaction in the terminal.

7) The passenger will receive a payment request on the mobile to confirm payment. The passenger will be required to accept the payment request and the passenger’s linked account will be debited the fare amount.

8) Once the transaction is successful and verified on the system, the counter person will print the ticket and hand it to the passenger.

9) Besides promoting the government’s initiative of increasing digital/cashless transaction, the new payment mechanism at railway counters will offer additional payment option to customers availing railway services. There is no need to share bank account or credit/debit card number.

10) The BHIM app is easy to use and supports payment through multiple banks on a real time basis.