Baby food, hot milk to be available at stations

Aiming to provide better services to passengers, the Railways plans to give emphasis on smarter ticketing, beautification of stations, entertainment screens, automatic doors, baby-sitting facilities including hot water and milk at stations, porters trained in soft skills and disabled-enabled toilets.

The Railways plans to invite FM radio stations for providing train-borne entertainment by installing public announcement system in trains.

As part of enhancing passenger comfort, the government is also proposing to re-imagine the design and layout of coaches to ensure higher carrying capacity and provision of new amenities including automatic doors, bar-code readers, bio-vacuum toilets, water-level indicators, accessible dustbins, ergonomic seating, improved aesthetics, vending machines, entertainment screens, LED lit boards for advertising, public announcement system and more.

These new specially modified aesthetic refreshing travel coaches will cater to emerging needs of Railways customers and also ensure lower unit cost of operations due to higher carrying capacity, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu said in his Budget speech.

Going digital
The minister has also announced his plan to integrate all such facilities into two mobile apps, one dealing with all ticketing issues and the other for receipt and redressal of complaints and suggestions related to all the services.

The government plans to make a disabled-friendly toilet at each platform in A1 class stations during the next financial year and also ensure availability of wheelchairs in sufficient numbers in the stations.

Aiming to mitigate the hardships that mothers undergo while travelling with infants and, for this purpose, the Railways will pilot availability of children’s menu items on trains. Further baby food, hot milk and hot water will be made available at stations and changing boards for babies will be provided in train toilets.

The government aims to beautify stations at pilgrimage centres including Ajmer, Amritsar, Bihar Sharif, Chengannur, Dwarka, Gaya, Haridwar, Mathura, Nagapattanam, Nanded, Nasik, Pali, Parasnath, Puri, Tirupati, Vailankanni, Varanasi and Vasco.