Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu is silently working to bring Indian Railways back on track, while giving special attention to improving passenger amenities, including the e-ticketing system, which now books 7,200 tickets per minute, against 2,000 in the old system. Two months into the new financial year, Prabhu is already implementing many proposals that he made in the Railway Budget in February.

To start with, Indian Railways is augmenting the capacity of all mail/express/Shatabdi and Rajdhani trains to 26 coaches. This will help reduce congestion in a big way and provide relief to the passengers as waiting lists for confirmed tickets will come down substantially.

"Initially, five trains have been identified to run with 26 coaches. But later on, other trains will also be covered," said a Ministry of Railway officer. Two general bogies are being added to mail/express/Duronto trains.

The officer said that the passenger helpline 138 has become functional. "It is working as an interface for queries/complaints related to medical emergency, cleanliness, food and catering, coach maintenance, linen, etc. A security helpline 182 is also working and can be used to report emergencies such as crime against women, onboard unlawful activities, train accidents, fire or medical attention required," he said.

Prabhu was picked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to run the ministry in November last year. He presented his maiden budget in February in which he did not announce any new trains, as was the practice of his predecessors. According to Ministry sources, Prabhu is sincere about overhauling Indian Railways by making qualitative changes, as he does not believe in populism.

In order to improve the ticketing system, a next generation e-ticketing system has been introduced, which has increased the booking speed of tickets by four times. The IRCTC now books 7,200 tickets per minute, against 2,000 tickets in the earlier system. Developed by the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), with an estimated cost of Rs 180 crore, the new system enables 1.20 lakh users to book e-tickets simultaneously.

In order to reduce transaction time, at the booking counters, a "Go-India" smart card scheme has been launched on a pilot basis on two sectors — New Delhi-Mumbai and New Delhi-Howrah. The smart card can be used at dedicated counters for issuing tickets. Efforts are being made to provide Wi-Fi connectivity in major trains. As a pilot project, Wi-Fi is being provided in the Howrah Rajdhani Express, while work is in progress to start it in the Ahmedabad Rajdhani, and the Kalka/Chandigarh Shatabdi.

As promised in the Rail Budget, the ministry has engaged the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) for designing the bedrolls and also the National Institute of Design (NID) for improving the interior designs of the coaches.

In order to improve finances, Indian Railways recently signed an MoU with state run Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) to raise Rs 1.5 lakh crore over the next five years. The investment by LIC, to be made through Rs 30,000 crore of bonds issued annually by rail entities, would be channelised by Railways for capacity augmentation projects. Besides, Railways is also exploring funding from multilateral agencies such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank. The funds will be used for doubling/tripling of railway tracks.

As a long-term measure, a Kayakalp Council has been formed, which is headed by industrialist Ratan Tata. The Council is expected to recommend innovative methods and processes for improvement, betterment and transformation of Indian Railways. Prabhu has also constituted an advisory council headed by former NASSCOM president Som Mittal to draft an Information Technology (IT) Vision for Railways.

The ministry has also decided to set up a "Technology Mission for Indian Railways" as a consortium of Ministry of Railways, Ministry of Human resources Development, Ministry of Science & Technology and Ministry of Industries, on an investment sharing model for taking up identified railway projects for applied research and use on the Indian Railways. Prof N.S. Vyas, former head of department of Mechanical Engineering at IIT-Kanpur has been made the "mission chairman".