Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Technology is where the answer lies ? On Railways.

All payment that anyone gives to government should be electronic and foolproof.
We already have electronic payment mode for electricity bill, income taxes, railway reservations and many others. But we do not have any foolproof system, so that no government official can be a direct point of contact with public, in money related matters. For example:
We have railway reservation system, we can book the ticket over the Internet and pay electronically. But when we see that the seats are not available and its an urgent journey we go straight to railway station and give bribe to the TC.
What is the cause of corruption here?
Because the railway reservation system prepare the chart three hours before the train launch, and there are people who cancel their journey within these three hours, many other similar issues depends on work process of railways.
So what is the answer?
Make the railway reservation system foolproof , use technology wherever possible, don't copy the system of America or japan.
How?
Use mobile phone numbers, electronic buttons, sensors, cameras or anything that can confirm the arrival of passenger on his/ her reserved seat. The best solution is to use the fingerprint scanner which scans the fingerprint of the person and identifies his UID, which will always be associated with his/her PNR number.
 prepare the chart and allow reservation and canceling till the last possible time , It may be 5 to 10 minuets. Install kiosks to book the tickets and cancel them, accept electronic payment wherever possible. Bring the manual task to the least.
Same is applied for the tickets. What is the major problem there.
"Don't you have change?" this sentence is what the ticket clerk repeat most of his/her lifetime.
So why not install kiosk for tickets everywhere. There are some big railway stations like Delhi who are already doing this.
What is the problem there?
Can the countrymen will operate it?
Yes .
Use National and local language wherever possible in user interface, use adahar based payment method, which uses only fingerprint to authenticate and transact.

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