Central Railway has decided to issue ID cards to physically challenged applicants in the quickest way possible on an experimental basis. Recently, Nilesh Barbate, 20, a physically challenged person, applied for an I card on Monday in one of the departments of the railway for the benefits of concessional travel in trains. In no time, the railway delivered the ID card of the applicant on the same day within a span of just an hour.
Every day approximately, 220 applicants fill a form for the ID cards for challenged persons, while only 123 are issued. Till January, CR has allotted 13,692 ID’s to the challenged persons.
Earlier, it used to take a period of one month for the CR to issue a card to the applicants through the government hospitals which are the issuing authority in the system. Recently in one case, the railway took a time of two months or more to clear out the applications.
The process has been reduced to a period of a week or till fortnight if the applicant has updated his status on the governmental website.
SG Rao, assistant commercial manager (goods), CR said, “After details of Barbate could be found on the website, chief office superintendent Sanjay Ambagade did not take much time to issue him the Id card.â€