Indian railways plans ATMs on running trains

Patna, Sep 24 (UNI) In its attempt to modernise Indian railways, the ministry has decided to introduce yet another passenger friendly facility by announcing Automated Teller Machines(ATMs) on running trains.

Railway sources here today said the ministry was serious about introducing ATMs in trains to enable passengers to avail themselves of banking facility.

Presently, prominent railway stations like Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai have ATM facility and the ministry had already planned to open 1833 more ATMs on railway stations across the country. The plan was also to enable commuters with e-ticketing facilities installed alongside the ATMs on the stations.

Railway sources maintained that major nationalised banks would install their ATMs in the trains and a separate boggie with adequate arrangements of security personnel would ensure safe transactions.

The brain behind the golden project was Research, Design and Standards Organisation(RDSO), a research wing of Railway ministry which had concieved the idea, sources added.

''This was possible through Global Positioning System(GPS) and Global System for Mobile Communication(GSM) on which RDSO has been working to explore the feasibility of such a novel concept and fulfill the long cherished dreams of the people to avail of banking facility while travelling,'' the sources said.

Incidentally, the RDSO was also working along with IIT Kanpur on a separate railway project called SIMRAN which is for rail navigation and train tracking system. SIMRAN is a satellite imaging software which enables monitoring of the movement of trains in a specific range for its location,speed and the direction of the movement of trains to avoid collision.

UNI