All railway help lines to converge into number 139
Indian Railways (IR) is all set to integrate all its channels of receiving complaints and suggestions from passengers – web, app, SMS, phone calls and manual besides implementing a single help line number for all kinds of complaints and suggestions.
The move aims at enhancing user friendliness for passengers besides providing economy of effort for IR in terms of capturing grievances and acting on them.
Integration of complaint sources
Indian Railways (IR) is in its final stages of rolling out what it calls Project Convergence. This project entails the implementation CoMS II (complaint management system version II) by the convergence of complaints received from several sources –web, App, SMS, helpline number 139 and manual complaints from the book. Complaints received via the social media would be integrated in the second phase of rollout.
One Rail One helpline
The project also plans to integrate all IR helpline numbers into one number and that is 139. Calls received on 139 will also become a feeder for the new version CoMS II.
As of now IR has several numbers such as 139 for enquiry, 152210 for vigilance,1072 for safety,182 for security,138 for general complaints,1800111321 for catering,58888 for Coach Mitra and 9717630982 for SMS complaints.
Agenda
For this, a videoconference meeting of the Additional GMs, Chief Security Commissioners and Chief Commercial Managers across all zones and Konkan Railway has been called for by the Railway Board on January 30,2019,(as per a letter dated January 18,2019 of which RailPost has a copy).
On the agenda are familiarizing the concerned officers on the changes in the second version and receive their feedback. A review of average time taken for grievance redressal besides the introduction of a new dashboard for commercial and security controls to handle general and security related complaints respectively, is also on the anvil.
CoMS II features
CoMS II incorporates the maximum time within which a complaint has to be redressed based on its urgency known as the service level agreement (SLA).
If the complaint is not addressed within the specified timeline by the frontline railway staff (control/inspector level), the system escalates it to the concerned branch officer. If the grievance is still unresolved, the next level escalation is done to the ADRM.
COMS II also provides passengers the option to give suggestions for improving IR’s service delivery.
The type of complaints and their sub heads in CoMS II has been rationalized to 15 and 100 respectively. The first version had 30 heads and 387 sub heads.
