Indian Railways’ Biggest Paperless Push: Reservation Charts Would Be Abolished!
With this initiative towards modernisation of the system, Indian Railways will be saving a tonne of money and paper.
Reservation Charts of confirmed or RAC ticket holders of Indian Railways have been an integral part of the journey: The eager eyes of passengers scanning the length of the charts before departure is a common sight at platforms.
But not anymore.
In one of the biggest push for going paperless, Indian Railways’ have decided to phase out the concept of reservation charts and rely only on digital information boards, and SMS information for informing the passengers about their coach and seats.
But, what will Railways gain from this exercise?
Besides saving money on papers, this will also help them to save the environment.
No Reservation Charts For Passengers Now!
Last year in September, Indian Rail had decided to stop printing and pasting reservation charts on all trains which started from these 6 railway stations: New Delhi’s Hazrat Nizamuddin, Mumbai Central, Chennai Central, Howrah, and Sealdah.
Buoyed by the response, and encouraged with the feedback, Indian Railways has now decided to implement the same paperless initiative across all railway stations of class A1, A and B.
This will be a pilot project, for a period of 6 months.
Based on the revenues, Railways have categorized railways stations into 7 categories: A1, A, B, C, D, E and F; which are further divided into 17 zones.
As of now, Railways has decided to continue with reservation charts at the platforms, but stop printing the same for trains leaving from the railway stations.
A notification from Indian Railways said,
“At those stations where electronic charts display plasma has been installed and the same is functioning properly, physical reservation charts at such platforms can be stopped,”
The Real Inspiration Behind This Project
In 2016, Indian Railways had launched a no-reservation chart concept at Bengaluru City and Yeshwantpur railway stations, which comes under South Western Railways Bengaluru Division (SBC).
The trains originating from these railway stations had no longer any reservation charts, and this exercise helped the Railways to save Rs 60 lakh in a year.
Hence, even if reservation charts are stopped at 10 such stations, Rs 6 crore can be saved per year.
Starting March 1st, Southern Railway will stop pasting reservation charts on all trains, and as per estimates, this will help them to save 28 tonnes of charting paper and Rs 1.70 lakh every year, per train.
SBC’s Senior Divisional Commercial Manager Sridhar Murthy has initially mooted this idea, which has now spread to the entire country.
In future, as per incoming reports, the concept of paper reservation chart would be totally abolished, and the passenger will have these 4 mediums to check the status of their ticket, and to find out the berth, coach:
- Digital Display at platforms
- Dial 139 and get IVR assistance
- SMS sent on their phones, with berth and coach number
- Ask TT of the train, as they will have a physical chart ready (which will soon change to digital gadgets)
In our opinion, this is a good initiative and will set a new example and standard for all other Govt. departments.
Do share your opinions by commenting right here!
Excellent n awesome! Maybe some of those trees saved will be in Delhi and Kolkata where people are now actually starting to wear pollution masks??? :)