Rly to have common pan-India number to lodge complaints on SMS

"There will be a new number to be applicable across the country to replace multiple numbers to lodge complaints about deficiency in rail services," said a senior Railway Ministry official.

Once operational, a passenger travelling in a particular train can register a complaint against the food quality or about dirty linen provided in the train through an SMS, to draw the attention of railway authorities.

The new SMS number will be similar to the common railway inquiry number 139 which can be used all over the country to lodge complaints. Besides launching the new SMS service, efforts are on to strengthen the redressal mechanism.

"All complaints received through SMS would be attended to and the follow-up action would be intimated to the SMS sender in due time," said the official. Currently, every railway zone has its own number for lodging complaints about railway services and there are 16 zones in the country.

Railways also have an SMS service to inform the train status, seat availability, train schedule, train time table and PNR status.

"This is for the first time railways will launch an SMS service to register complaints," said the official adding, "We have asked for a new number, preferably in three or four digit for lodging complaints through SMS from Telecom Department. Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) is working out the details."

After the finalisation of the new SMS number, it will be announced by Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee.