Passengers, who opt for travelling on the premium Railways train Rajdhani Express, may soon be able to fly on an Air India flight to reach their destinations! Railway Board chairman Ashwani Lohani is mulling to introduce a scheme which will benefit passengers who purchase AC-I or AC-II tickets for Rajdhani Express. (Reuters, PTI images)

Passengers, who opt for travelling on the premium Railways train Rajdhani Express, may soon be able to fly on an Air India flight to reach their destinations! Railway Board chairman Ashwani Lohani is mulling to introduce a scheme which will benefit passengers who purchase AC-I or AC-II tickets for Rajdhani Express. The passengers will have the option to fly provided they pay the difference. The train tickets are needed to be unconfirmed ones, according to Times of India report. Lohani had conceived the plan during his tenure as Air Indian Chairman. Railways however, did not show too much keenness then. It has been learnt that Lohani is ready to clear the plan if the national carrier comes up with the proposal.

On August 23, Lohani was appointed as the chairman of the Railway Board after the incumbent A K Mital resigned from the post. Lohani, an officer of the Railway Mechanical Service, had served earlier as the Divisional Regional Manager of Delhi. He was also ITDC chairman as well as the director of the Rail Museum in the capital. Mital, a 1976-batch officer of the Indian Railway Stores, was reappointed to the same post two days before his retirement in 2016. With the two-year extension, Mital will remain in office until July 2018.

Railways’ image has taken a “severe beating” due to the recent spate of accidents and there is a need to change the perception, Lohani had said earlier. “Due to the recent spate of accidents, the image of the organisation has taken a severe beating,” he said. He added that the Railways is an established and time-tested organisation of huge magnitude in terms of the distance it covers, and passenger and freight traffic it handles.

Lohani had instructed them to especially look into the staff welfare and be humane towards their needs. On the issue of cleanliness, Lohani said, it was a state of mind. “Start from decluttering your table and improve the state of the working spaces, stations, yards and trains,” he said.