Now catching a train is as easy as a flight

B D Narayankar

WORRIED OVER airfare hikes? There is an option. Book a train reservation. Taking a train, now a days, is as easy as catching a flight. The Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC)’s magic number "139 - Rail Sampark" has made life easier for travellers.

The inquisitive traveller will get all railway-related information within three rings without any interruptions or disconnections as before. They just need to dial 139 from any fixed line or mobile phone.

Travellers can get answers for their queries quickly because the call centre executives stick to the set questionnaire drafted by IRCTC. They don’t ask questions to callers other than what is listed. "This prevents reducing their Average Handling Time (AHT). Our aim is to give callers information within two minutes," says Rajini Hasija, IRCTC Information Technology General Manager.

The recent hike in air fares forced many to shift allegiance to trains. Sales of First AC and Second AC tickets shot up from 27 per cent to 43 per cent, between August 2007 and 2008. It was a time to rejoice, but IRCTC did not sit on its laurels. It instead focused on challenges thrown up by good revenue performance. First, they started working towards providing accurate and fast information to travellers.


The 24x7 line, operational since July 2007, enables PNR enquiries, all-India current train positions, fare information and ticketing. "It is as easy as taking a flight. I was surprised when I had to make a business trip to Bangalore by train," says T P Shaktivel, chief corporate officer at Unique Infoway, a Delhi-based IT company.

The 139 service, whose call centres are in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, is a revolutionary concept. It can be a good benchmark for public sector units’ serving customers, not only in terms of services provisioning, but also in terms of the business model," says Nilaya Varma, associate director at PricewaterhouseCoopers,

Already 139 employs about 2,000 people and draws over six lakh calls a day, which is expected to rise to 2 million calls by the year end. The system has the capacity to handle an astonishing 20 million calls a day, and more. "It’s a service that is a revolution in the making. It will change the way a customer interacts with the Railways," says Nalin Shinghal, managing director of IRCTC.

Another atribute which other PSU’s can get inspiration from is IRCTC’s indebatable emergency services, despite the 300 pre cent redundancy. This was evident during a series of agitations led by Gujjar leader Kirori Singh Bainsla.

Soon IRCTC is planning to route calls to the next closest destination if the network called is dead or busy.

Indian Railways is not incurring any capital or operational ex­penditure for the process, which is borne by the franchisee — a consortium of the Modi Group-promoted Bharat BPO, BSNL, Spanco Telesystems, Stracon Back Office Solutions and the Omnia Group — with a 10-year contract.

"The revenue potential is humungous," says Manish Sharma, associate director at KPMG. "If infrastructure and SLAs (service level agree­ments) are good, the railways could be attracting short-distance travellers on road routes such as Delhi-Chandigarh or Chennai-Pondicherry."

By the end of the year, premium services such as SMS alerts, call backs and fax, and value-added services such as tourism products, hotels and car rentals will be offered on another three-digit number.

There’s more. "We are awaiting government clearance so that customers can show their tickets on mobile phones and not carry a print-out," says Praveen Kumar, CEO of the Omnia Group. But both Hasija and Kumar acknowledge that improved basic services are not intended as revenue generators. "If we can establish a credible connect in basic services, customers will be happy to pay for value-added services," says Kumar. They sure will.

Certainly Indian Railways piloted by Union Railways Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav is in full steam to revamp its dark image into a twinkling one.

Source: Meri News