5) New Enquiry System

Indian Railways is discarding the computerised system for enquiry regarding train timings and reservation and reverting to the manual service. Railway Minister Lalu Prasad inaugurated the new railway enquiry phone number 139 by asking the operator about the timing and first class air-conditioned rail fare of the Patna Rajdhani Express. The phone number 139, to be available in four metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, is part of the integrated train enquiry system (ITES) called Rail Sampark consisting of interactive voice response system and regional call centres, Railway Board Chairman Jai Prakash Batra said.

The railways already have dedicated numbers for North, South, East and West zones on separate phone numbers, 1330, 1331, 1332, 1333, 1334 and 1335, which provide timings, reservation position and confirmation of rail tickets. There is also a computerised voice reply system. Asked what will happen to the existing computerised service, Batra said: "It will coexist for some time but once this is fully functional, we may decide to close that down." Batra replied in negative when asked if the new system was not like going back to the old days. He said that the new system was developed through public-private partnership (PPP) between Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRTC) and CRIS on the one hand and on the other hand Bharat BPO and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited as well as Spanco Telesystems and Solutions and Stratcon Backoffice Solutions with a call centre operator.

The add-ons in this service include hotel and taxi bookings and restaurant table reservations, apart from rail reservations. "In the first phase Tuesday zonal hub for the north region at Delhi and its call centre at Noida has been commissioned. This will provide the basic enquiry services for NCR Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Chandigarh," Batra said. "The subscriber will be accessing this service by making a local call and not STD dialling. For the northern centre 497 skilled executives have been deployed for the purpose," he said. The caller will have the option to seek information zone-specific regional languages.