Based on encouraging results obtained from trials
conducted in selected stations, Indian Railways are going ahead with their
Green initiative of dispensing with pasting of charts on coaches at all A1 (Coimbatore
in Salem Division), A (Salem, Mettupalayam, Erode, Karur and Tiruppur in
Salem Division) and B (No station in Salem Division under this category) Class
Stations. This will be on trial basis for a period of 6 months from March 1st.
For Southern Railway alone, this will result in saving of more than 28 tonnes
of Charting paper or Rs.1,70,000/- every year, pointing to a major effort in
becoming more eco-friendly. Railways’ other efforts in this direction include
encouraging “E” ticketing for both reserved and unreserved tickets, eliminating
large quantity of paper charts and daily reports by Computerized charting and
reporting and moving towards paperless office.
Dispelling
worries of inconvenience to passengers, particularly elderly people and senior
citizens, Commercial Department indicated that the required Coach and Berth
number information will STILL be available at Centralized locations at
all stations and with the TTEs. Only the charts pasted on the
coaches are being withdrawn. To help Senior Citizen passengers to avoid going
to from coach to coach looking for their accommodation, this information will
continue to be available on the charts displayed at prominent standard
locations in concourse and platforms.
Further,
until the reliability of electronic charts has been proven, waitlist charts
will continue to be pasted at all stations.
This is in
addition to the SMS messages sent to all confirmed passengers during charting,
and multiple messages sent to all passengers who have booked online, during
various stages as the journey date approaches. Over and above all this, the
seat position can also be obtained from the website www.indianrailways.gov.in and www.irctc.co.in as well as the Railways’
call Centre 139 through IVRS or SMS.
