Hubballi: When many businesses are getting smart,
tea-sellers at railway stations too are not falling far behind. Thanks to
apps,
chailwalas are now doing their business with a bit more ease as they can now spot the trains live and prepare tea and serve it hot to passengers.
Chaiwalas at halt stations are now equipped with
smartphones. They have downloaded many apps, including NTES and Where is my Train:
Indian Railway and
PNR Status.
NTES is the official app of the Indian railways and provides real-time status queries for all trains. Where is my Train: Indian Railway and PNR Status is a privately maintained app.
Kalandar, a tea and food seller at Harihar railway station, told TOI that tech-savvy chailwalas at halt railway stations are not new to these apps. “We can easily spot the train and prepare food accordingly. It helps us serve tea and especially snacks, hot. Earlier, we were unable to serve hot food whenever a train was late. However, now we are able to do that as we get live updates of a train’s status on the apps,” he said.
Khasim Sab, another tea seller, told STOI, “We enter the train number and get the live status on the app. All tea sellers have the apps in their smartphones.”
The National Train Enquiry System Android app has features including live station, train schedule with save feature, trains between stations, cancelled trains, rescheduled trains, diverted trains, stations and train schedules.
‘Where is my Train’ is popular among chailwalas as that provides live train status and up-to-date schedules from Indian Railways offline without needing Internet or GPS and is available in Kannada too. It also has features like quickly checking IRCTC seat availability, fares, PNR status tracking and setting destination alarms.
When TOI conveyed the chaiwalas’ suggestion that Kannada be included in the NTES app, officials said they would pass on the suggestion to NTES.
