Indian Railways Seeks Google's Suggestions for New IT Applications

The Indian Railways on Wednesday sought suggestions from Google CEO Sunder Pichai regarding the use of new IT applications for the benefit of its passengers as well as freight users.

Pichai, who met Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu in New Delhi, was also told about the various mobile phone-based applications operational in the railways, according to a senior Ministry official who was present in about 40-minute meeting, along with officials from the Indian Railways and Google.

The Indian Railways is keen to increase its IT applications including launching of more apps for various purposes.

Currently, railway clocks about 500,000 to 600,000 online ticket bookings in a day besides operationalise a few apps like security app for women in Mumbai suburban services and paperless ticketing for local journey.

Google and RailTel, a railway PSU, had signed an agreement in June to build a high quality Wi-Fi access network at 400 major stations across the country.

The project was announced in September, in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Digital India initiative and his visit to Google headquarters in USA.

To streamline execution of the Wi-Fi project, RailTel and Google have formed a joint task force and project team.

The project team would launch the Wi-Fi service at Mumbai Central station as a pilot project and subsequently do it in 16 more stations.

It is planned to provide Wi-Fi services in 100 stations in 2016. The remaining 300 stations will be taken up in 2017.