Quicker CR response to SMS feedback soon

The Central Railway (CR) administration will bring out an improved SMS feedback system that will lessen the response time to passenger issues and suggestions, apart from expanding the scope of the popular scheme to all its divisions.

“We will be adding some zing to the system which has gained in popularity over the period since its launch on May 8, 2009 by the then general manager B B Modgil. The new system will be in place in a week's time from now,” chief PRO (CR) Vidyadhar Malegaonkar said on Monday.

Further, the SMS feedback system, which till date was operative only in the Mumbai division, would be made accessible to passengers across all five CR divisions.

After having received various imaginative suggestions, the zonal railway is now working on the complete overhaul of the SMS complaint management system.

For one, the software will be updated, with the aim of reducing the response time, while a core team would be formed to specifically look into the complaints and suggestions.

Further, while the earlier server worked only for a particular duration in a day, plans are afoot to make it work non- stop 24- hours, irrespective of whether the team is logged in to it or not.

“ The issue we are looking to resolve is that complaints received via SMSes, most of the time, are not responded to even after 48 hours in the current system. With a dedicated team in place, we are working towards making this a passé and react quicker than before,” Malegaonkar added.

While most of the 25- odd SMSes received by the CR daily still concern themselves with complaints of punctuality and crowdingrelated issues, the trend is changing towards suggestions rather than compalints ruling the list.