KANPUR: A retired government employee in Rura village of Kanpur Dehat district has been offering free railway information service to people for the past 28 years through the public address system of a temple.

Gradually, he has even switched on to WhatsApp and earned the sobriquet ‘Train wale Baba ji’. “Raj Narain Mishra is running a parallel railway enquiry system in his village to help locals get up early and leave for railway station on time to catch trains,” said Jai Ram, deputy station superintendent of Rura. Mishra used to work as a lab assistant from Ganesh Shanker Vidhyarthi Memorial Medical College.

“Nearly 500 people from various localities of Rura wake up early only after hearing Mishra, who uses a loudspeaker and WhatsApp to update them about movement of trains,” said a school teacher. “The timing of trains keeps on changing. But Mishra keeps us updated,” said Golden Singh. Mishra said he launched the initiative when he was working at GSVM Medical College in Kanpur and used to travel daily between Rura and Kanpur

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