We all have spent hours at railway station waiting for our train and cursed the railways for not informing us about delays well in advance. Understanding the pain customers go through, Indian Railways has now decided to send an SMS to people if their train is running abnormally late. Apart fro this new initiative taken by the railways ministry, it will also set up 4,615 water vending machines at various Indian railway stations.

The estimated cost per water vending machine is between Rs 5 lakh to Rs 7 lakh depending on the quality of parameters of raw water available at the railway station and it would require engagement of Rs 2 to 3 persons per machine, the PTI report confirmed.

The information was revealed by none other than Minister of State for Railways Manoj Sinha, while replying to questions in the Lok Sabha. He has indicated that SMS service on train delays is under consideration, but hasn’t given any word on by when this service would be live.
He also shed light on other initiatives that Indian Railways has either taken or would be taking shortly. The capacity of the e-ticket system has been expanded and now as many as 7,200 tickets can be booked per minute. Earlier, only 2,000 tickets could be booked per minute.
"In the time to come, we will increase the (ticket booking) capacity," he added.

The Railways has taken various measures to make booking or reservation of tickets easier and user-friendly, he told the press.

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