Rail Budget 2015: Why senior citizens have good reason to cheer Suresh Prabhu

Any senior citizen or pregnant woman who’s travelled by Indian Railways can attest to the difficulty in getting a lower seat berth while booking tickets, something that only gets more difficult once the train has been boarded. Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu seems to have heard their plea and with his first railway budget made it easier for them to get berths that they can get into much more easily.

Prabhu announced that the number of lower berth seats reserved for senior citizens and pregnant women in every coach so that they have a higher chance of getting it while buying the ticket.

The minister also said that ticket examiners would be instructed to help senior citizens and pregnant women, who weren’t alloted lower berths during the reservation process.

The Railway Minister also said that they planned to allow senior citizens to reserve wheelchairs at stations before they arrived there so that they could be assisted in getting to trains. In order to make it easier for them to cross platforms, he said that the railways would work on increasing the number of elevators and escalators across stations.

The Minister also announced a slew of measures for the physically challenged, including better access to railway stations, Braille lettering on coaches and availablility of wheelchair facilities for them as well.