Indian Rail Budget 2015 has announced by Railway minister Suresh Prabhu, which offers more hopes and benefits to Indian IT and telecom industry could provide huge business opportunities to private players.

Indian Railway plans to introduce wi-fi facility in 400 category B stations across the country, and SMS alerts facility on mobiles as a valid proof of travel for PRS tickets and also SMS Alert service to inform passengers in advance of the updated arrival/departure time of trains at starting or destination stations,

Indian Railway is also planning to introduce a centrally managed Railway Display Network in over 2,000 stations in next two years and will also add surveillance cameras on a pilot basis in selected mainline coaches and ladies’ compartments of suburban coaches without intruding into privacy.

Indian Railway also going to introduce, hot buttons, coin vending machines, single destination teller, multi-lingual e-portal, crediting of refunds through banks, unreserved tickets on smartphones, automatic ticket vending machines with smart cards and currency options, etc.

Indian Railway will add e-catering to select meals from an array of choices. Travelers can order food through IRCTC website at the time of booking of tickets and also will be an integrated customer portal as a single interface to access different services as well.

Mobile phone charging facilities will be provided in general class coaches and increased in sleeper class coaches and online booking of Wheel chair on payment basis for senior citizen, patients and the differently-abled passengers through IRCTC on selected stations.

Train protection warning system and Train Collision Avoidance System to be installed on selected routes at the earliest and strengthening of RDSO into an organization of excellence for applied research; four Railway Research Centres to be set up in selected universities for fundamental research; ‘Malaviya Chair’ for Railway Technology at IIT (BHU), Varanasi to be set up.

Indian Railway’s IT version to be unveiled, which provide information on latest berth availability station navigation system, bar coded/RFID tracking of parcels and freight wagons, automated parcels warehouses. Integration of train control and asset management applications as well.