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Hire a Cab, Book A Hotel Using Indian Railway Call Centers

Monday, 16 July 2007 02:46 Hiren Pathak

Back in 2004, Indian Railways launched integrated train inquiry system (call center) at Bangalore and Patna offering information on train travel. Earlier there were eight different numbers - 131, 132, 1361, 1362 and few others. But now all information is accessible on one number 139.

So these new call centers provides exact position of the trains besides arriaval and departure. These call centers initially opened at Bangalore and Patna but now these call centers are opening up in different states of India.

But now these call centers would not only provide train related information but will also provide facilities to hire a cab, book your hotel room and much more. The FT reported that from August one can use a railways call centre to hire a cab to reach your hotel from the station. Four call centres, to be rolled out by the railways soon, will provide this facility.

These centres will offer three kinds of services—basic, premium and value-added. Local call rates will be charged for accessing the basic services that will include enquiries about train bookings and schedules. The premium services for enquires about the availability of tatkal tickets, trains between stations, cancellations, SMS alerts.

The value-added services will offer car and hotel bookings. Customers will be charged Rs 6 or more for premium and value added services. These call centers will be managed by Spanco Telesystems, Stracon and BSNL.

No wonder Indian Railway is making profit in crores. I definitely admire Lalu Prasad Yadav for his work towards Indian Railway.

Written By: Hiren Pathak. You can contact him at informationmadness AT gmail DOT COM
Our valuable member Hiren Pathak has been with us since Tuesday, 12 December 2006.