Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav announced on Friday that the Railways intends to increase its ticket issuance capacity from 25,000 to 2.25 lakh per minute and inquiry response from 40,000 to 4 lakh per minute. The minister said during a press conference held here that a target has been set to build additional rail tracks for 7,000 km in the financial year 2023-2024. “We are planning to improve the back-end infrastructure of the passenger reservation system. There will be a significant improvement of about 10 times in terms of hardware, software and website speed. Currently the ticketing capacity is around 25,000 tickets per minute. The target is to increase it to 2.25 lakh per minute.
“The capacity to attend inquiries will also be increased from 40,000 per minute to 4 lakh per minute,” Vaishnav said. “The shops will be fully stocked with items of daily use, which passengers can easily take back home after deboarding the train,” he added.
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The minister said that the 2022-23 target of laying railway tracks for a distance of 4,500 kilometers (12 kilometers per day) has already been achieved, adding, “Before 2014, it used to be four kilometers per day. The target is to lay new railway tracks for a distance of 7,000 kilometers next year. These tracks will include new lines, doubling and gauge conversion.
The minister said that under the One Station One Product (OSPS) scheme, 594 outlets have been opened at 550 stations so far. “This year the number of these stations will be increased to 750,” he said. OSPS aims to encourage indigenous and exclusive products and crafts of India by providing display and sales outlets at railway stations across the country.
Vaishnav also said that with the highest-ever capital outlay of Rs 2.40 lakh crore for the Railways in the Union Budget 2023-24, the Vande Metro, a smaller version of the Vande Bharat Express trains, will be developed by the Railways for people living in the vicinity. Big cities to travel comfortably between your work place and hometown.
with PTI inputs