HOWRAH: Tired of peering at those tiny, faint, almost illegible typed out letters on the reservation charts? Not any more. Eastern Railway installed a digital passenger reservation chart board at Howrah Station on Monday afternoon for passengers to get a clear view of their reservation status. A senior ER employee commissioned the e-chart board.
The reservation chart board is a combination of eight 50-inch LED television sets. Passengers reservation status will be displayed on four of the television screens and advertisements on the other four. The entire display system will be maintained by an agency, which pays the railways for the advertisements displayed. “This will generate non-fare revenue of Rs 43.93 lakh per year as licence fee,” an ER spokesperson said.
He said this digital system will be extended to other platforms gradually in phases. “Digital charting is an environment-friendly method to display passenger reservation chart as it will reduce consumption of paper and project the railways as an eco-friendly organization,” the spokesperson said.
The railways has been consistently turning paperless over the years. “Now passengers can look up the digital reservation board instead of waiting for the manually prepared paper charts which are pasted on the trains just before the scheduled departure,” an ER official said.
