Rail Sudhar- An Innovation To Prevent Corruption In Indian Railway
Student Team/ Author :
Bodhisattwa Sanghapriya
Guide By :
Prof. Prasant Nanda
Degree :
College :
Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology,Burla ,Odisha
The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) sees Railways as the most corrupt government organization in the country. The CVC’s annual report for the year 2010 reveals that every year third official penalized for corruption in India belongs to Railways. We encounter corruption in railway penalty collection, ticketing system and catering services in our everyday life. Vendors of pantry Cars overcharge the passengers. They demand much higher amount than the MRP printed on the products. Railway Ticket Checkers use their fake printed receipts and collect money from the passenger. In some case Ticket Checker takes bribe to allocate seat. There are also some instances where fake Ticket Checker and Squads collect various penalty charges ranging from journey without ticket, smoking in forbidden place, without platform ticket etc. The passenger after giving the penalty don’t get a quality receipt from authority. Whatever written on receipt can’t be read clearly. According to RTI report western railway collected 30.87 crore as fine in 2011-12 . Another RTI report says Delhi Railway Division a
The Innovation ‘Rail Sudhar’ basically address three major corruption in Indian Railway.
i.e. 1) Corruption in Fine Collection System
2) Corruption in Ticketing System
3) Corruption in Catering System
1) Corruption in Fine Collection System:
We encounter corruption in railway penalty collection in our everyday life. Railway Ticket Checkers use their fake printed receipts and collect money from the passenger. In some case Ticket Checker takes bribe to allocate seat. There are also some instances where fake Ticket Checker and Squads collect various penalty charges ranging from journey without ticket, smoking in forbidden place, without platform ticket etc. The passenger after giving the penalty don’t get a proper receipt from authority. Whatever written on receipt can’t be read clearly. According to RTI report western railway collected Rs 30.87 crore as fine in 2011-12 . Another RTI report says Delhi Railway Division alone collected Rs 15 crore within 6 month. These are the govt statistics but the actual amount is much higher. Due to corruption there is a huge loss of revenue for railway department and most of the case passengers suffer money loss and gets humiliate by Ticket Checkers. Passengers is unaware about the exact amount of fines.
Solution By Rail Sudhar:
My solution is to provide an anti-corruption railway penalty ticket collection system. The system comprises of QR code system, android app and a central web server. At first several penalty receipt ID will be created on our central server. For each penalty ID a unique QR code is generated .The QR code will be printed on each ticket separately on office column and passenger column. The RAIL SUDHAR android app can read the QR code and communicate with the central webserver .Whenever the Ticket Checker charge someone for penalty. The ticket checker has to log in to his registered account on android app and scan the QR code printed on receipt. Then the QR code will be redirect to the penalty ID webpage created earlier. The ticket checker has to fill the details like cause of fine, name, amount journey stations etc. in penalty ID. All data will be updated to central server. The user will get a passenger receipt slip. The QR code on passenger slip act as a token for railway passenger. Whenever the passenger scan the QR code he will get the penalty details. If the passenger get any irregularities in his Penalty ID like if the Ticket Checker entered wrong information or charged extra amount. The passenger will click on the report button provide there to lodge a complaint. As soon as the passenger click on report button the Ticket Checker is black listed and an alert message is sent to higher authority for further investigation .Other Ticket Checker can also scan the passenger details to check the validity and authenticity of the ticket. The passenger can also pay the fine amount through online payment gateway.
2) Corruption in Ticketing System
In recent time there is no proper general tickets .Railway is still following the older ticketing methods. The on-board TC in a running train openly sell available reservation seats to the on-board passengers. They take huge bribes to allocate those seats. If someone missed the train then there is no instant way to allocate these seats to waiting passengers, Ticket Checkers do it manually and take bribes. There is no proper real time databases with central railway server about the real time seat vacancy structure of a running train. It is usually checked by on-board TC and later that submitted to railway server which usually takes time to allocate vacant seat to waiting passengers.
Solution By Rail Sudhar:
In my proposed solution QR codes will be printed on each and every Railway Ticket. Each QR code is unique and will be directly link to central server. QR code will be printed on offline tickets and all E-ticket passenger will get a QR code in their registered mail id inform of an image. The QR will contains all information tickets in offline form along with the PNR number.
The TC has to scan all the passengers’ ticket during ticket examination by Rail Sudhar APP. After checking all tickets when the TC submit the result all the data will be uploaded to railway server and the vacant seat will be immediately allocate to waiting passengers. After allocating the waiting passengers if any vacant seat left then it will be shown on Rail Sudhar APP so that on board passengers can get information about it. All available seats allocation to on-board passengers will be done through Rail Sudhar APP. So that the TC can’t overcharge the passenger. The passenger can also pay the fine amount through online payment gateway.
3) Corruption in Catering System
It is quite common in railway that the vendors overcharges the catering products. They demand much higher amount than the printed MRP. It is always not reliable to carry more cash during journey.
Solution by Rail Sudhar APP:
Whenever a railway catering agency always buy goods in bulk quantiy. My solution is to attach a unique QR code to a batch of products. For example IRCTC buy a 100000 Potato Chips packets each worth INR 10. Then a particular QR code will be generated from IRCTC server for this potato chips batch. It will be attach on each packets. In rail Sudhar APP all vendors will have their own accounts .When a passenger buy an item the vendor has to scan the QR code. It will shows the exact price, Railway Catering Service provider, extra charges and other details in Offline mode. A QR code is capable of storing all these data in it in offline mode. There will be a online payment gate way so that the passengers can pay the exact amount directly IRCTC. In return the vendor will get a reward point for each transaction which he can redeem later.
The entire system is partially depended on internet. If the system detects severe internet problem then it can send those data to railway server through text
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