Railway launches women safety application R-Mitra
Indian Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu launched an app introduced by Eastern Railway, Railway Mobile Instant Tracking Response and Assistance (R-Mitra) to ensure women’s safety in trains. The app will send an alert to the nearest RPF inspector and divisional security control room in case of any emergency with just a tap.
When the button is pressed, the physical location of the victim will be sent to the control room with the help of GPS and GPRS and the control room will track the user and take action immediately. It works both online and offline in SMS mode by using the helpline number 56161. This app was developed by Eastern Railways for its women passengers mainly.
“Around 2.7 crore to 3 crore people travel in the Indian Railways system on a day-to-day basis. Different types of crimes are committed by anti-social elements. It is a big challenge to deal with crime in railway properties,” Prabhu said.
“It is a fantastic versatile system and will also act as a deterrent,” he added. “So this application has been developed to deal with it and is by far the best so far,” he said noting that the Western Railway also has a similar alert system. The new app developed by Eastern Railway mainly for its women suburban passengers can be spread in other regional railways also, Prabhu said.
