139 - Indian Railways Tele-helpline Celebrates First Anniversary

Registers five Lakh calls in a day, expects to touch 20 lakh calls per day by end of the year.

Pune, 18 July 2008: “139 - Rail Sampark”, the national enquiry for Indian Railways successfully completed its first year of operations today. The service has expanded significantly registering over 5 lakhs calls in a day from across the country. The service was launched last year for North Zone, by the Hon’ble Railway Minister Sh. Lalu Prasad Yadav, with the objective of bringing high quality information services within the reach of every passenger.
“139 - Rail Sampark”, the Indian Railway enquiry services delivered by Bharat BPO, handles enquiries pertaining to arrival, departure, schedules of trains plying between two stations, PNR and reservation of berth status, fare enquiry, availability of Tatkal accommodation, journey planning, concession and cancellation rules, refund rules and trains between stations. The call center support is available in eleven local languages across India.
Elaborating on the success of 139 – “Rail Sampark”, Managing Director, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd (IRCTC), Sh. Nalin Shinghal, said, it is a service that is revolution in the making, with IRCTC’s internet ticketing services already providing to be a run away success “139 - Rail Sampark” will change the way a customer interacts with the Railways. We aim to make 139 the single point of contact with the railways for rail passengers and provide them a complete range of service, including several value added services.
Speaking about one year operations of 139, Mr. Akashdeep Singh, Chief Operating Officer, Bharat BPO said, “The idea is to connect with masses, a service that is meant for all should be made effectively and easily available. All the calls are answered, mostly, within 3 rings and are attended within about 2 minutes. The efficacy of service was put to test during large-scale disturbances in movement of trains during agitations in the recent past. The milestones achieved till now will further motivate us to continue delivering our promise and we strive towards taking a big leap where 139 turns into a comprehensive suite of services.”
“139 - Rail Sampark” will soon be launching the first of its suite of value added services.

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Bharat BPO is a Joint Venture Company of Omnia BPO Services and Spanco Telesystems & Solutions Ltd. The consortium had bagged the contract of Indian Railways for operating Integrated Train Enquiry Services (ITES) all across the country. A company under the name of Bharat BPO Services Limited has been promoted to implement this project. While the Zonal Call Centers for this project are located at the four metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai & Kolkata the Regional Call Centers are set up at NOIDA, Ahmedabad, Mysore and Kolkata to begin with. This operation has been started with about 700 seats and 2000 persons and is likely to scale up to 2000 seats and 5500 persons in the next year.

This release was published on openPR.