New Announcement For Indian Railways Passengers

Bhubaneswar/New Delhi: In a good news for lakhs of rail passengers, country’s largest transporter, the Indian Railway has decided to soon roll out new facilities on trains to give passengers an experience of in-flight entertainment just like on aeroplanes.

Union Railways Minister Piyush Goyal recently informed through a tweet that the Indian Railways will soon offer free video streaming to passengers on railway stations and in trains without any extra charges.

“Soon, stream your favourite movies, shows and music on trains and stations,” the tweet by the union minister read although he did not mention as to when will the new facility be rolled out.

According to a report published in the Financial Express, the project will be implemented by the State-run RailTel Corporation of India. The report quoted a railway official saying that ‘a Request for Proposal (RFP) will be issued by RailTel within the first few days of August.’

The RailTel will provide preloaded multilingual content; movies, music videos, general entertainment including TV serials and devotional programmes, lifestyle-related etc in moving trains, the report stated.

It may be noted that RailTel is already offering free high-speed WiFi service at thousands of stations across the country. The proposal for new video streaming facility comes in the backdrop of the Indian Railways’ decision to introduce aircraft-style on-board infotainment in long-distance trains.

The facility is already available on trains like Tejas Express and Anubhuti coaches where the Railways received complaint of damages to personalised screens and hardware installations by passengers.

While the preloaded content will be made available for free, the Railways has decided to earn non-fare revenue from the new facility.