When BJP led NDA came to power in 2014, it gave space to some young ministers with new ideas. One of them was Suresh Prabhu who introduced Twitter to Indian Railways for information on new schemes, train operation and addressing grievances.
Indian Railways received a lot of appreciation for their active redressal on Twitter. They changed the experience of travelling in Indian trains; help seemed to be just a tweet away. Students from Asian School Dehradun, had tweeted to the railway minister, asking for food since their train was delayed by more than seven hours due to heavy fog and there was no pantry car on the train:
@sureshpprabhu @RailMinIndia sir plz arrange food for school students in train 12370(B-1) bcoz of 7 hours delayed, route diverted,No Pantry
— Amit K Narnoli (@ANarnoli) December 7, 2015
When Udit Rajpara boarded the Mumbai-Ahmedabad double-decker train from Mumbai, he clicked a photograph of the dirty window and posted it on Twitter tagging the minister, he noticed that the glass of the window near his seat was unclean and he couldn’t see through it. So he clicked a photograph of the dirty window and posted it on Twitter tagging the Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu as well as the Divisional Railway Manager of central Mumbai.
Three people from the train staff came to him, asked if he can see. Subsequently, it can be cleaned at every station. But I feel that railways is more concerned about passengers in the AC and sleeper compartments while neglecting the general compartments – mostly in the premium trains such as Shatabdi Express, Jan Shatabdi.
Is there a bias towards AC compartment to non-AC compartment and general compartment?
Some days back Indian Railways decided to serve meals to reserved passengers travelling on trains delayed on Sundays, but not on other days – which is a matter for another discussion. While the free food for reserved passengers is appreciable, why not for those travelling in the general compartment? This is only applicable for those trains delayed during lunchtime, and not during other times.
Don’t they deserve free food? Indian Railways don’t realise that people from lower economic classes travel in the general compartment, which also consists of the majority of our population.
General compartments are usually neglected, it is a packed room of people squeezed, making it appear like they are being transferred to concentration camps. I had tweeted on Train 12267 highlighting RPF trying to squeeze as many people as possible into the compartment, which went neglected.
https://twitter.com/arunchandrac/status/754723074038050817
It would be much appreciated if the same department which is concerned with cleaning an AC compartment window shows a little bit of concern in providing clean compartment and toilets for the general compartments. Let’s not forget that a bunch of people traveling in this compartment are without a ticket.
Mr.Goyal, every passenger deserves equal treatment and access to better facility – irrespective of the class they travel.