PUNE: A mobile application ‘Rail Madad’ for raising and monitoring of railway passengers’ complaints is being launched. Meanwhile, the Railways has decided to integrate all its telephonic grievance registration channels into a single one. After that, the other six helpline numbers (except 139) will become defunct on January 1 as the new system comes into place.
The Railway’s general enquiry helpline number 139 will now be renamed as integrated helpline 139. While all other helplines will become defunct, the only exception will be Helpline 182, which provides security-related assistance via Railway Protection Force (RPF).
As per the officials, the decision was taken by the Railway Board to simplify the process of grievance registration for passengers and processing for the Railway authorities. As per officials, the mobile application Rail Madad, which was launched in June 2018 and also operates as an integrated platform, has been a successful experiment which has prompted the authorities to create a similar alternative for the telephonic channel.
“The Integrated Helpline 139 will subsume all existing Railway Helpline numbers (except 182) namely, General Enquiry/ 139, Catering Services/ 1800111321, Accident/ Safety/ 1072, SMS complaints/ 9717630982, General complaints/ 138, Vigilance/ 152210 and Clean My Coach/ 5888/ 138.All the above helpline numbers (except 182 & 139) would be discontinued with effect from January 1,” said officials.
At present, the 139 helpline (operating as a general inquiry helpline) receives between two and three lakh calls each day on the national level. The calls are attended by a dedicated team of staff members outsourced to various service providers, who run the four zonal call centres located in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Bengaluru. The helpline was started in July 2007 as a need for having an integrated enquiry number for passengers was felt. Since the Centre for Railway Information Systems already had the number approved from the government it was put to use.
Among the helplines that will become defunct are 1800-111-139 which could be used to register complaints pertaining to catering services on Indian Railways; customer helpline number 138 which used to raise issues pertaining to cleanliness, coach maintenance and linen; 9717630982 which could be used to raise complaints related to various issues via an SMS and 5388 or the Clean My Coach helpline to summon cleanliness staff to a certain coach.
