RAILWAY MINISTER INAUGURATES CYBER EXPRESS CAFÉ AT NEW DELH STATION
The Union Minister
of Railways Shri Nitish Kumar inaugurated a Cyber Express Café
at Platform 12 of New Delhi Station at a function here today.
The Minister of State for Railways Shri Bandaru Dattatraya, Chairman
and Members of Railway Board, Managing Director, RailTel and other
senior railway officials were present on the occasion. The Café
has been set up by RailTel under the Ministry of Railways.
Speaking on the
occasion, the Railway Minister congratulated RailTel and said
that cyber café on railway platforms would provide a new
dimension to passenger amenities by increasing their satisfaction
level. The Minister announced that RailTel would establish such
cafes on all railway stations gradually to provide internet and
other telecom connectivity to passengers, industries and market
places as ‘A’ category Internet Service Producer licensee. The
Minister also announced that RailTel would introduce soon Internet
facilities in one of the trains buoyed by its recent successful
experiment, which would be extended to other trains later.
This is the first
of its kind on a railway platform. It is a next generation café
with facilities for web browsing, e-mailing, gaming, Internet
telephony, scanning, printing, photocopying, faxing and Video-Conferencing-all
under one roof. The café has provision for 12 flat screen
LCD based computer terminals, two IP phones and two video conferencing
set ups.
The Café
is fully air-conditioned and is powered by a broadband internet
connectivity of 256 kbps. Browsing is based on pre-paid billing
through pin billing coupons of three denominations of Rs. 15/-
for 15 minutes, Rs. 20/- for
30 minutes and Rs. 30/- for 60 minutes. The Internet Telephoy
can be used with the ease of a normal telephone call and is aided
with the bill printing machine used in the normal PCOs.
This facility
shall be open 24 hours to travelling public. RailTel is running
the café withM/s Appologic Broadband Systems Limited acting
as a franchisee. This is the first experiment of RailTel doing
this business using the revenue sharing model.
Next time if
passenger needs to wait for a connecting train or is on the platform
to receive a family or friend, important work need not suffer.
Passenger can avail RailTel’s reliable and efficient 24 hours,
all days a week internet service .
Later, Shri Nitish
Kumar inspected 18 newly converted guard-friendly break vans of
freight trains and gave away prizes to the participants. The first
prize of Rs. 2 lakh was bagged by Ambala Depot of Northern Railway
followed by second prize of Rs. 1.5 lakh by Mughalsarai Depot
of East Central Railway and third prize of Rs. 1 lakh by Andal
Depot of Eastern Railway. Similarly, three workshops, namely Dahod
Workshop of Western Railway, Kota Workshop of West Central Railway
and Rainapada Workshop of South Central Railway respectively bagged
first, second and third prizes for best maintained workshops.
Twelve other participants were given consolation prizes. Delhi
Division of Northern Railway was awarded special prize for arranging
competition for best maintained guard-friendly break vans and
workshops.
Talking of guard-friendly
break vans, Shri Nitish Kumar announced that all the break vans
of goods trains numbering more than 5000 would be converted to
make them guard-friendly so that the working conditions for guards
were improved and correspondingly mental stress and other physical
drudgery reduced. He congratulated the freight Workshops for evolving
competition in upkeep and utility of break vans of goods trains.
The Minister also said that out of 35 improvements suggested by
Research Design and Standards Organization (RDSO), a Research
and Development Unit of Indian Railways, ten have already been
introduced and six more improvements would be introduced later.
In all, 18 improvements in guard-friendly design with necessary
facilities for toilet, bed and chair were being introduced to
improve service conditions of guards on goods trains as they symbolized
‘Bholu’, the mascot of Indian Railways and worked as sentinel
of railway safety alongwith drivers who have been re-designated
as Loco Drivers.
