Railway Budget 2012: Better facilities for passengers

New Delhi: Train passengers have been given a lot of facilities in the Railway Budget 2012-13 presented by Union Minister Dinesh Trivedi on Wednesday. Recognising the need for clean and green trains, the Railway Minister said that 2,500 coaches would have bio-toilets, which would be much clearer and easy to maintain than the conventional ones presently in use.

"A lot of green initiatives have been taken. Defence Research and Development Organistaion (DRDO) has developed bio-toilets and 2,500 coaches will be equipped with bio-toilets," said Trivedi while proposing to raise allocation for passenger amenities from Rs 762 crore to Rs 1,112 crore in 2012-13.

He also proposed to set up a special house keeping body to enhance standard hygiene and cleanliness. He promised that the Railways would make all efforts to maintain hygiene and cleanliness in trains and stations.

The new proposals include bio-toilets, special house keeping body and coaches for differently-abled passengers.

Coming out with a new catering policy, Trivedi said that the Railways proposed to employ reputed agencies via global tender for the same and a pilot project would be launched soon in a few trains.

Railways would also have specially designed coaches earmarked for wheelchair borne and differently-abled passengers and one bogie in each train would be dedicated to such passengers.

The NID would be roped in to help improvise the design of coaches to help the passengers.

Trivedi also announced the plan to set up three centres for training personnel in disaster management and to integrate Railway Protection Force (RPF) helpline with all passenger helplines. Satellite based real time information of trains would be introduced in the next 18 months to update passengers on all running trains

The introduction of escalators, book a meal, AC lounge, extension of house keeping, mobile booking, alternate train accommodation system to accommodate wait listed passengers have also been proposed.

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