Questions/Answers

Initiative: RailMadad is an integrated solution catering to all services-related issues of Railways’ Customers. It innovates in process & service-delivery to provide unprecedented reach, alacrity & efficiency to Public Grievance (PG) management over Rlys. It facilitates customers in the following areas: 1. Redressal of passenger and freight grievances: Includes Registration of every grievance with a unique RailMadad Registration Number (RRN), tracking & feedback facility 2. Inquiry on Passenger Train Services, Parcel and Freight Business 3. Assistance in Medical & Security emergencies 4. Suggestions Challenges: Before RailMadad, Grievance Redressal & Inquiry system over Indian Railways was beset with the following challenges: 1. Problem of Multiplicity: Various sector-specific grievance platforms existed, e.g. for cleanliness, food, ticketing, security etc. There were over 15 grievance-specific Helplines. There was no digital support for freight/parcel complaints/suggestions. 2. Cumbersome Registration Process: The portals asked for too many details, had over 300 non-homogenous categories of grievances; no tracking/feedback facility. 3. Bureaucratic Delays: Complaints travelled from top to bottom, losing precious time, before reaching the redressal unit. 4. Manpower wastage: Manpower wasted in compiling grievances. Trend analysis was not possible for taking corrective & preventive measures. Objective: To effect citizen-centric delivery of services through process and service-delivery innovations in grievance redressal: 1. Convergence: of all grievance channels/portals into a single platform. 2. Citizen-empowerment: by providing choice-of-channels, ease-of-accessibility, ease-of-living, ease-of-registration, accountability, trackability & feedback for their grievances. This increased RailMadad’s reach and popularity. Since its launch, RailMadad has served 250 Million customers. 3. De-layering, SLAs & Escalation: Redressal process accelerated by taking grievances directly to the concerned official to provide real time relief to customers. If a complaint is not redressed within the Service Level Allowances (SLAs), it gets escalated to higher official. 4. MIS reports: Extensive reports for grievance mitigation and prevention.

RailMadad transforms process and service-delivery of redressal & inquiry mechanism over Railways. It delivers digital governance which responds to ‘Antyodaya-the last man standing’. Since its launch, RailMadad has already served 250 million customers. 1.Process Innovation: a.Convergence: Integrates all channels & portals of grievance & inquiry b.Delayering: Direct Alert to field staff; response time reduced from 7 days to less than 3 hours for 72% of train-related grievances. c.Scalable & Replicable 2.Service-delivery Innovation: a.Customer-friendliness: Simple & accessible b.Inclusiveness & Responsiveness: Immediate help to Digital have-nots, divyangjans (differently-abled) & women through Helpline #139 c.Citizen-empowerment: Unique registration number, tracking & feedback facility

1. RailMadad contributes to the implementation of SDG ‘9 (c), under Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure’. 2. RailMadad innovates in process and service-delivery to provide universal and affordable access to Public Grievance redressal over Indian Railways. Both smart/non-smart phone customers can access RailMadad at no extra cost. This is evident from complaint receipts, going up from 700 per day to over 3,000 per day in about a year’s time. 3. Process Innovation: a. Convergence: Comfort of a single, simple, integrated solution for all customers’ issues b. De-layering: Grievance alerts go directly to the field units; 72% train-related grievances redressed within 3 hours c. Scalability & Adaptability: Configurable parameters, open source software, modularity & provisions for Horizontal and Vertical scalability, make RailMadad hugely adaptable. 4. Service-Delivery Innovation: a) Ease-of accessibility and choice-of-channels: User has a real choice as Grievance registration is channel-neutral. b) Inclusiveness, Responsiveness, Gender-sensitivity: RailMadad embraces digital governance without being exclusive. Digital have-nots have been empowered to get their grievances registered by simply calling #139. Highest priority given to Medical and Security emergencies by placing them at #139/1, connecting directly to call-centre executive. This directly benefits women passengers.

1. Social Terms:  Reach: 250 Million customers served since launch  Digital governance, yet not exclusive: RailMadad #139 services are available 24X7 in 12 languages  Inclusiveness & Gender-Responsiveness  Ease-of-accessibility & registration  Citizen-empowerment 2. Economic Terms: Customers: Both smart/non-smart phone users can access RailMadad at no extra cost. Railways: RailMadad has been developed module-wise - as the number of users increase, more resources can be provisioned. For Helpline #139, number of executives can be ramped up, if needed. 3. Environmental Terms: Grievance redressal over Rlys almost paperless. Manual DAK accounts for only 1% of the total complaints.

RailMadad effectively deals with customer-unfriendliness & inefficiencies of the earlier grievance/inquiry systems: 1. Customer-friendliness: Customers provided the comfort of a single integrated solution for all issues. RailMadad Helpline #139 converges over 15 Helplines 2. Choice-of-channels, Reach, Inclusiveness, Responsiveness: RailMadad is accessibile through all channels in a non—hierarchical manner. It embraces digital governance without being exclusive. It empowers digital have-nots by enabling them to get their grievances registered by simply calling #139. With an average response time of less than 30 seconds, #139 is the most popular channel to access RailMadad. #139 services are available 24X7 in 12 languages. It receives over 2,50,000 calls/day and accounts for 56% of over 3,100 complaints per day on RailMadad. During Covid emergency, #139 attended to over 14,550 calls per day 3. Citizen-empowerment: Unique registration number, trackability & feedback facility 4. Citizen-delight through Delayering: Average disposal time reduced from 7 days to less than 3 hours for 72% of train-related grievances 5. Manhours saved, cost of redressal reduced: RailMadad utilizes the existing & 24X7 working, Divisional Control Centre Staff (about 3,600 personnel/day) to close complaints. The clerical staff wasted in compilation of reports was re-deployed. 6. Exhaustive MIS reports for grievance mitigation & prevention.

RailMadad is gender-sensitive & gender-responsive: 1. Choice-of-channels: RailMadad accessible through Web, Helpline #139, APP, Social Media, SMS & Email. 2. Helpline#139: Provides direct, non-restrictive access to call-centre executive to register grievance. Help is only a call away. #139 facility available 24X7 in 12 languages. Highest priority to Medical and Security emergencies by placing them at #139/1. This connects caller directly to call-centre executive, circumventing IVRS. All calls are logged in RailMadad for accountability, and recorded for quality-check. 3. De-layering: This has accelerated Railways’ response time for medical & security issues that affect women passengers directly

1. Since its launch in 2018, RailMadad has served 250 Million customers. 2. RailMadad provides real-time assistance and grievance redressal to railway passengers. It covers 8000+ stations and 12000+ trains. On an average, 23 million passengers & freight customers use Railways everyday. All of them can access RailMadad through multiple channels. In substance, the reach is complete and cent-percent for the targeted population, i.e. Rail users. 3. RailMadad Helpline #139 receives over 2,50,000 inquiry/assistance/grievance calls per day on IVRS & call-centre; while over 3,100 grievances are registered across various channels per day in RailMadad. 4. All the States and UTs supporting telephony and internet have a direct access. The system works even with an ordinary phone, through the Call Centre. There is no insistence on a Smartphone. Left out locations have the access to the system of Manual Complaints, which also flows to the RailMadad entity.As RailMadad is web-based, it can be accessed within and outside of India. 5. As the system is integrated with NTES (National train enquiry system), it sends alerts to the concerned Divisional Control Office directly responsible for providing relief. Efforts are made to redress complaints real-time, whether on the train or station.

1. PG management over Rlys had the normal bureaucratic top-down approach generating delays, working mostly as post-mortem rather than quick mitigation. Departmental biases vitiated the old non-digital systems. Even the limited digital processes suffered from these limitations. 2. To integrate and converge all portals/Helplines and to make use of the common domain experience, many rounds of meetings were held with different departments across the organization to prepare the blue-print. 3. For technical expertise, CRIS was roped in, while IRCTC provided call-centre support for Integrated RailMadad Helpline #139. For transfer of calls from #139 to concerned field offices, mobile and landline numbers were collected and mapped with #139. 4. The following systems were studied in detail: a) CPGRAMS: Split of complaints, commonality of causes among different categories, time taken for sending complaints to field unit, redressal time, feedback mechanism. b) Complaint Management Systems (CoMS): ease of accessibility, ease of registering complaints, acknowledgement, assignments of complaints to field unit, action taken, reassignment, forwarding, MIS, categories of complaints & feedback mechanism. c) Helplines: Misdirected calls, call-handling protocol, recording of complaints. d) Social Media: Exchange of information, visibility to other users, internal communication protocols, uploading of videos and photographs. e) Manual Complaints: Flow of information, accountal, statistics, disposal. 5. For successful rollout of RailMadad:  training on the model of ‘train-the-trainers’ was organised for all stakeholders (CRIS, IRCTC, Zones, Divisions, and Railway Boards Directorates)  All PG Managers were sensitized through a series of Video-Conferences (VCs).  Personnel manning: Social-media Cell & Call-centre (#139) were also trained about grievance categories in RailMadad; #139 executives were also trained in protocol to handle security, medical and safety calls.  Shortcomings in the response time or inadequate quality of response were brought to the notice of Heads of organisations through Whatsapp groups, VCs, and letters/emails.

1. Inertia: RailMadad subsumed all grievance portals/helplines, managed by different departments. These departments showed resistance in letting go what they considered as their sphere of operation. 2. Reluctance: from Staff w.r.t SLAs and escalation. 3. Unwillingness: in CRIS/IRCTC to start RailMadad on a clean slate, without being saddled with the baggage of the older systems. Data-analysis was used to show the futility of the previous segregated portals, how these wasted Railway Manpower, were customer-unfriendly, resulted in low disposal rate and high disposal time, & were unsustainable in the long-run. Staff were convinced by fixing SLAs after consultation.

1. RailMadad innovates in process and service-delivery to provide unprecedented reach, alacrity and efficiency in PG management. 2. Process Innovation: a. Convergence: of All channels – Web, SMS, Phone call, Mobile-App, Email, Social Media & Manual Dak. b. De-layering: Grievance alerts go directly to the field units. c. Scalability& Adaptability: Possible 3. Service-Delivery Innovation: 5. Ease-of accessibility and choice-of-channels: User has a real choice as Grievance registration is channel-neutral. RailMadad Helpline #139 is accessible in 12 languages. 6. Interoperability: Minimal info asked in registering grievance as RailMadad ‘Interacts’ with other IT systems. 7. Citizen-empowerment: Track-and-trace facility through a unique Reference Number.

RailMadad was envisaged, conceptualised, planned and executed by Ministry of Railways itself for ease-of-living of Railways Customers. Railways did not hire any consultants from outside. The domain knowledge and expertise of Railways’ Personnel & Railways’ agencies (CRIS & IRCTC) were utilised in the making of RailMadad. 2. However, before drawing its blueprint, the following systems from and outside Railways were studied: a) CPGRAMS (under DARPG) b) Complaint Management Systems (CoMS):Railways c) 15 Railway Helpline d) Social Media e) Manual Complaints 3. RailMadad uses digital governance to converge the hitherto unconnected service-providing departments into an integrated platform, catering both to digital haves/have-nots.

Open source software, recommended by Government of India, is being used in making RailMadad. Both Horizontal (more servers can be added) and Vertical scalability (RAM CPU can be added) possible. The focus has been to use digital governance to achieve customer delight by providing: 1. Easy Accessibility- Web facility in two languages (Hindi & English); Helpline #139 facility in 12 languages 2. Choice-of-channels 3. Ease-of-registration 4. Quicker alerts to field units 5. Accountability, Transparency, Trackability & Feedback 6. Paper-less working 7. Facility to uploads videos, photos and documents 8. MIS Reports 9. SLAs & escalations 10. Device Agnostic

Yes. The concepts and technology used in RailMadad are eminently adaptable, scalable and replicable, especially by Organisations managing Public Utilities and Services: 1. CPGRAMS portal, (managed by DARPG – Directorate of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievance, Govt of India), is being revamped on the lines of RailMadad. CPGRAMS has incorporated RailMadad’s concept of ‘De-layering/Bottom-up approach’ to reduce redressal time of grievances. 2. DARPG also showcased RailMadad to Govt of Maldives and multiple African Nations, for public grievance redressal. 3. Indian Railways is developing RailNivaran (Portal for Railways’ grievances) on the lines of RailMadad. RailNivaran would incorporate RailMadad’s concepts of Convergence, Delayering, SLAs & Escalation Matrix to redress employee grievances at a faster pace. 4. Recently, for ease-of-business of Railway Customers, two new categories of Parcel and Freight Facilitation were added in RailMadad. 5. It has been shortlisted to be developed as a case study to be shared with various Central/State Training Institutes by DARPG. 6. RailMadad has been awarded ‘Silver’ in the category ‘Excellence in Citizen-Centric Delivery’ in National E-governance awards in February 2020. 137 projects from across India competed in this category. 7. RailMadad also won Order-of-Merit certificate in Skoch award in 2020.

(i) Adaptability and scalability: 1. Most of the parameters are configurable; open source software, recommended by Government of India has been used, making this application more adaptable. 2. The system has been developed module-wise - as the number of users increase, more resources can be provisioned to serve the end users. 3. Provisions for both Horizontal (more servers can be added) and Vertical scalability (RAM CPU can be added) has been kept. 4. Nested Users (Zone-Division-Department) can be created (ii) Replicability: System is replicable provided that processing of complaints is done by having two levels of escalation and at each level SLA time need to be defined on the basis of complaint category. (iii) Restrictions, if any, in replication and or scalability: At present, more than two levels of escalation & three-layer nested user matrix (Railway-Division-Department), cannot be accommodated, but can be added on. (iv) Risk Analysis: 1. System is dependent on various intra-web service integration, e.g. ICMS, NTES, train & station data, for correct fetching of journey details. 2. For complaint alerts, Railway users have to correctly update their mobile number and email id. 3. For accurate transfer of calls, correct mobile numbers have to be mapped with Helpline #139.

1.Prior to RailMadad, CoMS (Complaint management system) was the biggest grievance portal w.r.t finance and reach among customers. Necessary administrative approvals were taken to replace CoMS with RailMadad and to converge all other grievance portals/channels into the latter. 2.Similarly, it was decided to transform #139 into an omnibus Integrated Helpline by merging over 15 other Railway Helplines into it. 3.For the above work, Rlys spent approximately Rs 9.5 crores. This included Rs 3.79 Cr for Hardware Procurement and Deployment, Rs. 1.82 Cr for Application Development charges, and 3.86 Cr for Helpline #139.

For Customers: Both smart/non-smart phone users can access RailMadad at no extra cost. This is evident from complaint receipts, going up from 700 per day to over 3,000 per day in about a year’s time. For Railways: RailMadad has been developed module-wise - as the number of users increase, more resources can be provisioned. For Helpline #139, number of executives can be ramped up, if needed. Convergence & Delayering has brought down Railways’ response time from 7 days to 8 hours, without any extra manpower. This has earned Railways’ goodwill from both - customers and other Ministries.

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1. Internal Evaluation: Feedback mechanism built in the system being used to assess User satisfaction. No issues w.r.t efficacy of the complaint registration system have been reported. 2. External Evaluation: a. Awarded ‘Silver’ in the category ‘Excellence in Citizen-Centric Delivery’ in National E-governance awards in 2020. 137 projects from across India competed in this category. b. Won Order-of-Merit in Skoch award in 2020. c. CPGRAMS & RailNivaran portals being revamped on the lines of RailMadad. d. Showcased to Govt of Maldives and multiple African Nations, for public grievance redressal. e. Shortlisted as a case study to be shared with Central/State Training Institutes.

RailMadad was adjudged on the following parameters:  Reach through various channels  Ease-of-accessibility  Ease-of-registration  Choice-of-channels  Customer-friendliness  Inclusiveness  Digital governance, yet not exclusive  Citizen-empowerment  Citizen-Centric  Responsiveness to the marginalised  Speed of Redressal  Quality of Redressal  Efficiency of Redressal  Human Resources used (Cost to Railways)  Interoperability  Adaptability  Replicability  Scalability  Sustainability  Innovation of process and service-delivery  Dovetailing with Core policies of Govt of India: Citizen-delight, Ease-of-living, Ease-of-business, Digital India, Make-in-India & Maximum governance with Minimum government

1. RailMadad’s write-up, provided by Ministry of Railways, was thoroughly vetted. This was followed by Power-Point Presentations & extensive questioning of the Head of the Project RailMadad, on the parameters mentioned above. 2. 511 projects applied in Six categories for National E-governance awards 2019-20. The category ‘Excellence in Citizen-centric Delivery’ saw maximum competition with 137 projects from across the country. The jury for E-governance award comprised of Joint Secretaries of various Ministries under Government of India. 3. As RailMadad converged various portals and channels, the Jury focussed on the administrative and technical challenges faced during the conceptualisation, execution and roll-out of RailMadad. The Jury inquired about the stakeholders involved, how they were brought around to go ahead with Convergence, and the process of implementation of RailMadad across a massive organisation like Railways. The Jury keenly examined the outcomes of RailMadad – for customers and for Railways. They specifically asked for data about RailMadad’s reach, responsiveness, inclusiveness, speed and quality of disposal. They asked about the cost to Railways in providing redressal through RailMadad, especially w.r.t Manpower used. They had to be satisfied about the sustainability, replicability & transferability of the project.

RailMadad is a unique initiative of Ministry of Railways: a. RailMadad has been conceptualised and implemented utilising Railways’ own resources and agencies. b. Indian Railways was fully seized of the difficulties faced by its customers due to multiplicity of non-modular and tardy inquiry and grievance mechanisms. Despite being manpower intensive, these systems were neither adding to Railways’ goodwill among its customers, nor were of much use for Railways’ management in taking system improvement measures. c. Railways did not hire any consultants from outside for RailMadad. The domain knowledge of Railways’ own Personnel was utilised. Railways’ agencies like CRIS & IRCTC provided software/hardware/training and Call-centre support for Integrated Helpline #139, respectively. d. The simplicity and accessibility of RailMadad for both digital haves/have-nots, makes it an unparalleled initiative in both the Government and Private Sectors. e. RailMadad dovetails into core policies of Govt of India like Minimum Government, Maximum Governance; Ease of Living, Ease of Business, Customer Delight, Citizen-Centric Delivery, Digital India, and Make in India. f. RailMadad has been felicitated both by Government agencies (DARPG, Govt of India) and Private agencies (Skoch Awards). Its template is already being used/studied by other Govt departments, as detailed in answer to Question 9(a).

1. RailMadad is an in-house product of Ministry of Railways. 2. Railways did not hire any consultants from outside. The domain knowledge and expertise of Railways’ Personnel Railways’ agencies (CRIS & IRCTC) were utilised in the making of RailMadad. 3. Before drawing its blueprint, the following systems from and outside Railways were studied: d) CPGRAMS (under DARPG) e) Complaint Management Systems (CoMS):Railways f) Helplines: 15 Railway Helpline d) Social Media e) Manual Complaints 4. The emphasis was to use digital governance to cater both to digital haves & have-nots, without any distinction. 5. Evaluation: a. Awarded ‘Silver’ in the category ‘Excellence in Citizen-Centric Delivery’ in National E-governance awards in 2020. 137 projects from across India competed in this category. b. Won Order-of-Merit certificate in Skoch award in 2020. c. CPGRAMS & RailNivaran portals being revamped on the lines of RailMadad. d. Showcased to Govt of Maldives and multiple African Nations, for public grievance redressal. e. Shortlisted as a case study to be shared with Central/State Training Institutes. f. Helpline #139 would also be co-opted into National Emergency Number #112 (under Ministry of Home Affairs, Govt of India) for responding to Railway emergency.

Lessons Learnt: 1. ‘Our employees are our best consultants’ (Dale Carnegie): Railways utilised the domain-knowledge of its employees to deliver RailMadad. This saved cost, time and added to Railways goodwill among other Ministries. It also shows that technology per se delivers little, unless guided appropriately by domain knowledge. 2. ‘If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six sharpening my axe’ (Abraham Lincoln): Planning was the key for making RailMadad sustainable, replicable, responsive, inclusive, flexible, fast, adaptable, and scalable. 3. When opportunity presents itself, one should not tarry: Behind every successful project lies a team. When such a team is available, then one should go for the kill. 4. Overcoming Inertia: Departments may pursue goals at odds with organisational goals. To tide over such situations, tact, persuasion, pressure groups and data may be used. 5. Think of the last man standing: Gandhiji’s Talisman was the guiding principle in making RailMadad inclusive, transparent, accountable & citizen-centric. Improving the initiative: 1. Suggestions from Railway staff and customers are regularly incorporated; e.g. facility of two-way communication, interim replies, Parcel and freight facilitation, have been newly added. 2. Road Ahead: Chatbots, adding the last-mile contractor staff.