Railway Enquiry Website Updates Arrival Of Many Trains That Are Late Even Before They Reach Destination
Image Credit: India | India Today

Railway Enquiry Website Updates Arrival Of Many Trains That Are Late Even Before They Reach Destination

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As per data by Train Suvidha, the number of trains arriving more than 15 hours late at destinations has increased manifold from 2014 to 2017.


The table shows a clear increase in delays over the last four years. Train Suvidha

Last year, the BJP government took the decision to do away with the 92-year-old tradition of a separate Rail Budget and included it in the finance budget. It also made plans of restructuring administration, aiming at introducing accountability in functioning.

However, there have been numerous complaints by passengers over the services offered by the Indian Railways.

Ajayendra Tripathi, a frequent user of the services provided by the Indian Railways, reached out to The Logical Indian and informed us of his issues.

"On March 9, I was travelling from Delhi To Ballia, and my train was rescheduled twice. Lichchavi Express, which was supposed to depart at 3 PM, was departed at 10.30 PM and reached its destination 12-13 hours late. I faced the same problem on the return journey," said Tripathi.

"This is when I prepared a list of trains and decided to check their travel history. I found out that the number of trains running late in the first three months of 2017 is largely greater than those running late in the previous years," he added.

Tripathi resorted to making this information public and reached out to various media platforms. In about a month, many people came up with instances of similar problems.

On April 18, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu came on strong against the train delays and warned officials to improve the condition or 'face action'.

However, to the disappointment of Tripathi, trains continued to run later than the scheduled time.



There was only a slight improvement in the running time of trains when compared to the previous month.

Furthermore, he received information from his peers that the government is forging data in its official enquiry website to show fewer number of trains running late.


National Train Enquiry System data manipulated

As per the account of passengers travelling by Indian Railways, the railways has been changing the departure and arrival time of trains to either show that the trains are not running late or are running late by a lesser time than the actual.

On May 20, Ashwini Dinker, made a Facebook post on the railway's manipulation of public data:

"Since the time the Railway Minister has warned officials on the matter of trains running late, there has been good improvement — but only in numbers. On 20 January 2017, Mahanama Express (22418) was scheduled to arrive at Jaunpur City (JOP) at 6.30 AM. At 7AM, the official railway website showed that the train is 53 minutes late and will be arriving at 7.23 AM. However, when I checked the website at 7.43 AM (refer screenshot 1), the expected arrival and departure time showed 'waiting for update'. The train finally arrived at 8.10 AM. But when I checked the website again at 8.34 AM (refer screenshot 2), the actual arrival time was written as 7.22 AM and delay of 1 hour 40 minutes was shown as only 52 minutes."





On May 28, Dinker made another post, highlighting the same – the train arrived later than the scheduled time and the data in official government website was forged.



The Logical Indian urges Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu to look into the matter and take serious actions to avoid its repetition in the future. It is the right of the people to be correctly informed and forging official data is a violation of that right. Indian Railways accommodates 20 million commuters every day and such actions by Railway authorities themselves are disappointing and unacceptable.


Ajayendra Tripathi has created a petition on Change.org requesting the government to work on the delay and implement few basic amenities to improve Indian Railway. We request Indian Railways and Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu to look into the issue.

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Editor : Pooja Chaudhuri

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