NEW DELHI: Despite Indian Railways halting passenger train operations during lockdowns 1 and 2, it was been receiving gratitude from the people for going out of its way and keeping their interest uppermost.
Though Railways has halted passenger train operations for more than a month now to arrest the spread of Covid-19, grateful customers have been expressing their appreciation to the Railways for ensuring that interest of the passengers and all commercial clients are taken care of and national supply chains kept running during the lockdown, an official release here said.
Due to problems being faced due to the lockdown, it was felt that the Railways should have a unit to listen and give swift response to people. As a result, a Railway Emergency Cell for COVID was setup.
The Railway Emergency Cell for COVID is a comprehensive nation-wide unit comprising about 400 officers and staff from Railway Board to divisions. During the lockdown, the Cell has been responding to about 13,000 queries, requests and suggestions daily, from five communication and feedback platforms .
More than 90 per cent of the queries were responded on a one-to-one basis, mostly in the local language of the caller, over telephone.
Due to this 24-hours working Indian Railways Emergency Cell for COVID has its ears to the ground, leading to fleet-footed response to redress grievances of both Railways’ customers and general public. For its swift response, Railways garnered praise from across the country.
RailMadad Helpline 139 answered over 2,30,000 queries on a one-on-one basis in the first four weeks of the lockdown, in addition to queries answered by its IVRS facility.
During this period, more than 1,10,000 calls were received on Helpline 138, which is geo-fenced, that is, calls land on the nearest Railway Divisional Control Office (manned round-the-clock by Railway personnel) as per the location of the caller.
As need was also felt for quick mass transportation of essential items like medical supplies, medical equipment and food through parcel, again, Railways started timetabled parcel trains for time-bound delivery of essential items like life-saving drugs. RMS and other consignments struck at various points were also cleared using Parcel specials — a move welcomed by businesses and public alike.
A businessman, who was ably assisted by Bengaluru division in transporting rice from Gadchiroli to Bengaluru and was again helped by Delhi division in getting rice packaging material loaded from Delhi, responded: “Sir I would like to extend heartfelt gratitude to Railway ministry. Thank you.”
Railways incorporated suggestions received from public, on realtime basis, wherever possible. In the case of one parcel special train headed to Guwahati from Yashwantpur (Bengaluru), East Coast Railways rerouted the train with a planned stoppage at Vishakahpatnam, after receiving a suggestion on twitter.
Railways also played pivotal role in transporting life-saving drugs to people unable to procure them in lockdown.
A Canada-based NRI, at present in Ludhiana, lauded Central Railways in coordinating and ensuring delivery of his essential medicines from Nagpur to Ludhiana, in the absence of a direct train between the two stations.
Western Railway transported essential medicines from Ahmedabad to Ratlam, urgently required by a child after his liver transplant.
The child uploaded a handwritten letter of appreciation on twitter saying, “I am glad that Indian Railways have all the facilities for their citizens in this difficult time ? Indian Railways are the best.”
North Western Railway transported 20 litres of camel milk from Jodhpur to Mumbai for a three-year-old suffering from autism and having severe food allergies, by giving unscheduled stoppage to pick the milk container.
To this, a well wisher responded, “Amazing to see how to simply make things happen. Where there is a will, things are made to happen.”
(AGENCIES)
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