The Indian Railways have taken some praiseworthy steps for the comfort of passengers. Now, passengers can get their PAN and Aadhaar cards made at railway stations. Passengers will also get the facility to recharge their phones and pay electricity bills. For the successful implementation of these steps, RailTel is now going to set up kiosks like common service centres. These Kiosks will be called RailWire Saathi Kiosks. Passengers will be able to apply for Aadhar and PAN cards through RailWire Saathi Kiosk. Passengers will also be provided with the facility of filing taxes, Voter cards, banking, insurance, income tax, bus tickets and air tickets.
As of now, this facility has been started at two stations of North Eastern Railway in the first phase. These two stations are Varanasi City and Prayagraj Rambagh. These Kiosks will be operated by village level entrepreneurs of common service centres.
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In the second phase, preparations will be made to start this facility at many other stations including Gorakhpur. Stations are being marked for this purpose. Soon, these services will be extended to passengers at Veerangana Laxmibai station also. Chief Public Relations Officer (North Eastern Railway) Pankaj Kumar Singh said that Rail Wire Saathi Kiosks has been installed by RailTel at two stations as a pilot project. He said that it is being planned to install Rail Wire Saathi Kiosks at other stations (200 stations) in future. Out of these 200 stations, 44 are in South Central Railway, 20 in Northeast Frontier Railway and 13 in East Central Railway. 15 are in Western Railway, 12 in West Central Railway and 13 in East Coast Railway. 56 stations are on North Eastern Railway.
This scheme is being operated in partnership with CSC e-governance Services India Limited, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India.
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CSC-SPV managing director Doctor Dinesh Kumar Tyagi said that access to digital services in rural India is often hampered due to a lack of connectivity. Dr Dinesh said that with the availability of RailTel’s Wi-Fi and Kiosk (KIOSK) infrastructure at railway stations ( wifi is being provided at 6000 stations by RailTel), village level entrepreneurs will be taking services to the masses.
