The Indian Railways is going to launch a dedicated mobile application – named ‘MADAD’ (Mobile Application for Desired Assistance During travel) – later this month to enable its passengers to lodge their grievances or complaints, from food quality to dirty toilets. The complaint lodged through the app will directly reach the relevant officials of the divisions concerned and the action taken can be relayed online, thus fast-tracking the entire process of registration and redressal of grievances.

Passengers can register their grievances simply by keying in their PNRs and they will receive a complaint ID through SMS at the time of registration. This will be followed by personalised SMS regarding the action taken by the department concerned. Passengers will also be able to track the status of their complaints and be notified about any action taken in the case. A senior official said, “As of now, we have 14 channels through which passengers can register their grievances. Each has its own response time and even standards of response. While some are active, others are not. We wanted to have one transparent, standardised grievance redressal process. The app is likely to be launched this month.”

The app would also display total monthly complaints received and resolved by the Indian Railways and show ranking of top five and bottom five railway stations and Rajdhani, Shatabdi trains of each zone in terms of faster complaint resolutions to encourage transparency and accountability, the official said. Further the official added, “The introduction of this system does not mean that we will not respond to complaints on other forums. But eventually, we want to use this one integrated system. This will also represent a holistic picture of weak, deficient areas and will enable focused corrective action by concerned officials.”

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 15, 2018 09:44 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).