Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu has invited suggestions from the public to make the forthcoming Railway Budget citizen-oriented.
The aim of such an engagement is to help Railways come closer to citizens and better understand challenges that they experience and ensure that most important areas from a citizen’s perspective find place in the Railways priorities, said a Ministry statement.
Citizens can login on the Railway Ministry website www.indianrailways.gov.in and submit suggestions and innovative ideas on varied railway subjects such as computerisation, finance, foot-over bridges, freight and infrastructure.
Suggestions have also been invited on new trains, extension of trains, augmentation of trains, frequency of trains, pantry cars and catering, railway lines, road over and under bridges, crime prevention, safe running of trains, disaster management and tourism-related services, among others. They can be submitted up to January 16, 2015.
The initiative of Railways is in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s emphasis on ensuring a participative governance, the statement said. Prabhu has already held deliberations with industry bodies and chambers in the run up to the Railway Budget which is expected to be presented in the last week of February. Indian Railways is already connecting with the people through its social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Youtube with the common URL @RailMinIndia.
A community social media platform called ‘LocalCircles’ has voluntarily offered to be a partner with the Indian Railways to provide collective citizen inputs on various aspects pertaining to railways. The local circle ‘Make Railways Better’ has been generating number of inputs based on the feedback from their large 70,000+ strong online citizen community on various subjects like budget, cleanliness, safety, reservation systems, productivity and food.