Title - Railway passengers seldom follow up cases

CHENNAI: Railway passengers who lose their valuables on trains file a police complaint and forget about it. The cases are often not taken forward because the passenger doesn't make inquiries about the status of the investigation.Though the railways has a special cell to deal with all kinds of queries under RTI, including those on the status of investigations , only 10% of applications received are from passengers. The rest are from railway employees who want to find out details about their service benefits.According to official notifications from Indian Railways and Southern Railway, passengers can ask anything about railway operations under the RTI act. Moreover, railway centres have dedicated offices to deal with inquiries and petitions. "Out of 500 RTI petitions we receive a month, 90% are from railway employees asking questions about their service issues, delays in promotions and orders. Less than 10% of the complaints are from passengers," said a senior railway official.As per the railway rules, passengers need not to run to the nearest police station to file a complaint. "Railway rules clearly say that the ticket examiners are supposed to receive complaints from passengers. Also it is the duty of the investigation officer to shift a case to the right office instead of asking the passenger to go there. All these rules are being violated as a majority of train passengers are ignorant of their rights," the official said.

To know the status of a complaint or to find out the reservation quota for a train from the nearest station or to identify major lapses in a recently introduced system, passengers can send their RTI petitions to this address: Public relations officer, Southern Railway headquarters, Chennai. For more details about filing a petition, passengers may visit www.southernrailway .com or contact 044-2535535 .