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D. Murali

The Union Railway Budget is visibly riding the IT track.

IN 2003, when Lalu went to Pakistan as part of a delegation and entertained the media and the people there, not everybody was amused. The then Railway Minister Nitish Kumar had remarked, Pakistan ka aloo aur Bihar ka Laloo, referring to photographs in newspapers that showed the RJD chief displaying a big potato in a Pakistani market.

Jab tak rahega samose mein alu, jab tak rahega jungle mein balu tab tak rehega Bihar mein Lalu, and such lines are rife on the humour Net. But jokes apart, the latest Budget from Lalu the Rail Mantri has its IT dimensions, or the arithmetic logic unit (ALU) of Lalu.

Early on in his speech, Lalu outlined areas where `public-private partnership initiatives' have been introduced. These included not only commercial use of surplus railway land and logistics parks, but also "utilisation of optic-fibre cable network of RailTel" and computerised train enquiry system. It may be news to many that even as the Indian Railways ferry people and carry goods, a major communications programme is on the anvil.

Infrastructure is in place, in the form of the optic-fibre network of RailTel Corporation running through 26,000 route kilometres, providing connectivity to 180 cities and 1750 railway stations. And now, RailTel is looking at revenues from its vast network through leasing the same for broadband services such as the Internet, voice telephony on the Net, cable TV, and national long-distance telephony. In addition, Lalu's men are also working on GSM-R based Mobile Train Radio Communication or MTRC as a safety aid for operational and maintenance staff.

While still on communication, a decidedly progressive move is the introduction of a universal railway enquiry number, 139. Taking a call on the common complaint that `telephone lines pertaining to railway enquiry remain always busy', call centres are adding hundreds of lines. Lalu expects that, by the end of 2005-06, both urban and rural people will be able to get information by dialling 139 at local call rates. This is no mean achievement.

A section of the Rail Budget was on `expansion of IT for customer satisfaction'. A pilot scheme is on cards to facilitate Mumbai suburban passengers "to renew their season tickets on the Internet and have it home-delivered." What a relief, that is, compared to standing at clogged up booking counters! The Passenger Reservation System (PRS) is now on at more than 1,100 locations all over the country, to which you can add another 150 where work is in progress. Most people may not know that there is also the Unreserved Ticketing System or UTS in 108 locations, with more than that number coming up.

Elsewhere, Lalu's Budget speaks of `IT steps oriented towards MIS', with the idea of deploying IT "to improve the process of planning, monitoring and decision making, reduce operating expense through a more efficient utilisation of rolling stock and to enhance the public image of the railways."

The first step is about `data warehouse' developed from UTS, PRS, and Freight Operations Information System (FOIS). "The proposed data warehouse will significantly boost the efficiency and effectiveness of the planning, control and monitoring processes," states Lalu, though one may have to study how.

Another step is to control movement of trains by computerising `charting'. A benefit of this will be "useful information on real-time basis" to passengers through the National Train Enquiry System or NTES and call centres. Third among the steps is to develop a unified computerised Crew Management System "to streamline the management of train crews, optimising manning of trains, and providing running staff with rational working hours".

If that sounds revolutionary, wait, there's more: the `Punctuality Module' of the Coaching Operations Information System or COIS, covering passenger coaches and parcel vans. "The timetable module of COIS is under development and a central timetable date base has been built up. This will be Web-enabled during the year 2005-06," said Lalu.

If all goes well, the coming year should also see the computerisation of Railway Claims Tribunals, Goods Refund Offices and Subsidiary Claim Offices. A Web-enabled Claims Management System is bound to reduce the average time taken for claim settlement. There's also the use of IT for `route wise throughput enhancement' for removing "congestions on the golden quadrilateral and its diagonals" and to bring remarkable improvement in the operating efficiency of the Railways.

Though accounting gets derailed often, Indian Railways is looking at getting its accounting out of the rut. Its `time-tested system' provides "a reasonable base for capture of data and production of financial statements in accordance with reporting requirements of Government."

Why then a switchover? Because Lalu feels that recent trends lay stress on uniform accounting standards and deployment of IT-assisted accounting system "with greater transparency in financial reporting of the organisation". Therefore, it comes as heartening news that the Railways have "set in motion an Accounting Reforms process to meet the emerging business needs".

Whether Lalu magic works or not in Bihar, his Budget sends encouraging signals of IT working for his Department.

ITworks@TheHindu.co.in

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