Prabhu inaugurates Rail Auto Hub, bar-coding of unreserved tickets
01 March, New Delhi
Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu Tuesday launched the Rail Auto Hub in Walajabad and bar-coding of unreserved tickets at nominated counters on New Delhi, Delhi and Nizamuddin Railway stations here through video-conferencing.Minister of State for Railways Manoj Sinha and other senior Railway officials were present at the Rail Bhawan, while Lok Sabha MP Meenakshi Lekhi, General Manager Northern Railway and other officials were present at the New Delhi station.
Prabhu said Railways was committed to make railway system passenger-friendly and respond to the needs of train travellers. “With less than a week of the Railway Budget, we have started implementing them,” he said.He said the Railways was focusing on a few commodities, and to diversify it, the railways has decided to move to some other commodities which were never focused. Adding that automobiles was one of them.
Prabhu while presenting the Railway Budget 2016-17 had said, “To capture the automobile traffic, we will soon inaugurate India’s first rail auto hub in Chennai”.He said the bar coding of unreserved ticket would ensure proper revenue to the railways, adding that the bar coding unreserved tickets would be printed through thermal printer thus saving a lot of time.
Walajabad station in Chennai has been developed as the first auto hub on Indian Railways.The station is located near major auto units of Oragadam, Sriperambadur and Singa Perumal Kovil areas which have manufacturing facilities of Nissan, Hyundai, Ford and Dailmler Chrysler.The auto hub would act as an ideal distribution centre for the inward traffic of TATA, Honda and others converging for sistribution into Tamil Nadu and adjoining states including Puducherry.The hub has seamless road connectivity of 4/6 lanes to the production and consumption centres.
At present four per cent automobile traffic are transported through railways and around Rs 100 cr have been collected in 2015-16. The target is to increase the share of Railways to around 20 per cent by 2026. Bar coding of unreserved tickets would help speed up the ticket issue and above all to check frauds.The encrypted QR code on unreserved tickets would be implemented at New Delhi, Delhi and Hazrat Nizamuddin stations as a pilot project.