08/09/2016
Government has decided to extend the
facility to travel by any airlines to visit Jammu & Kashmir on LTC for a
period of two years
Press
Information Bureau
Government
of India
Ministry
of Finance
08-September-2016
10:32 IST
To boost the tourism in the State of
Jammu & Kashmir, the Government has decided to extend the facility to
travel by any airlines to visit Jammu & Kashmir on LTC
To boost the tourism in the State of
Jammu & Kashmir, the Government has decided to extend the facility to
travel by any airlines to visit Jammu & Kashmir on LTC, under Special
Dispensation Scheme for Central Government employees, for a period of two years
beyond 25.09.2016.
Press
Information Bureau
Government
of India
07-September-2016
16:45 IST
Driving Licenses and Vehicle
Registration Certificates can now be accessed through Mobile App
Shri Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Road
Transport & Highways and Shipping and Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of
Electronics & Information Technology and Law & Justice jointly launched
a new service - integration of DigiLocker with Driving Licenses (DL) &
Vehicle Registration Certificates (RC) in New Delhi today. With this
integration people will no longer need to carry around physical copies of their
RCs and Driving Licences. They can instead access digital copies of the same on
their mobile phones via the DigiLocker mobile app. Driving Licenses and Vehicle
Registration documents can now be issued directly to the DigiLockers of
individuals in digital formats. These digital copies can be shared with other
departments as identity and address proof. They will also be used for on the
spot verification through the cittizen’s mobile, by various law enforcement
authorities like the Traffic Police. Besides being convenient for people, this
will also result in assured authenticity of such documents and reduction of
administrative overhead.
Speaking on the occasion Shri Nitin
Gadkari said that this platform is a major step forward towards ensuring
greater transparency and cutting down corruption and red-tapism. He said the
move will benefit a large number of people by facilitating ease of access to
the documents.
Launching the service Shri Ravi
Shankar Prasad said that the integration will bring a paradigm shift in the
vision of paperless governance. It will serve to bring agility and efficiency
to the entire process of issuance of driving licenses and vehicle registration
certificates through IT enablement.
DigiLocker, launched by the Prime
Minister Shri Narendra Modi in July last year, aims at transforming India into
a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. It is a platform for
issuance and verification of documents and certificates digitally. When a
person signs up for a DigiLocker he gets access to a dedicated cloud storage
space for his important documents. DigiLocker currently has 21,26,332
registered users with 24,11,702 uploaded documents and has issued over
4,26,73,232 documents as on 01 September 2016. The Ministry of Road Transport
and Highways is actively digitizing driving licences and registration
certificates and maintaining a National Register System. With today’s launch
this National Register System has got integrated with DigiLocker, making over
19 crore Vehicle Registration Certificates and over 9 crore driving licenses
available in the citizens’ lockers. Once the data from the remaining RTO’s is
updated in the National Register Systems, the digital copies of those driving
licenses and vehicle registration certificates will also be available via DigiLocker.
In order to access the digital RC
and DL a person needs to first sign up for a DigiLocker. He then needs to
download the DigiLocker Android App from Google PlayStore. In the Mobile App he
will have to select the Issued Documents section and then the DL/RC. Field
staff like the Traffic Police can do offline verification of RC/DL using QR
Code. Apart from the mobile view version, digitally signed documents can also
be accessed electronically, and these will be at par with the physical issued
documents as per IT Act 2000.
Shri Ajay Kumar, Additional
Secretary, MeitY informed that with today’s integration, MoRTH becomes the 17th
issuer to issue its documents to DigiLocker. He also informed that this is the
largest such integration since DigiLocker was launched last July.
Shri Abhay Damle, Joint Secretary,
MoRTH said that the Ministry is working towards intergrating even documents
like vehicle insurance and fitness certificates to DigiLocker .
The integration is the result of continuous
coordination between MoRTH and MeitY with technical support from National
Informatics Centre and National e-Governance Division (NeGD) under the Ministry
of Electronics & Information Technology. Secretary MeitY and senior
officials of NIC were also present on the occasion.
Railway Fares Hiked up to 50% in new Dynamic Pricing
Model
Presented in the form of a dynamic pricing model — except that the new structure will not see any decrease in fares — the Railways will offer only the first 10 per cent of berths at current prices.
The government
Wednesday announced, in effect, a major fare hike of up to 50 per cent in base
fares for most passengers travelling in premium train services — Rajdhanis,
Shatabdis and Durontos. This brings the segment in direct competition with
low-cost airlines in terms of pricing. Presented in the form of a dynamic
pricing model — except that the new structure will not see any decrease in
fares — the Railways will offer only the first 10 per cent of berths at current
prices.
The remaining 90 per
cent will be sold at prices starting at 10 per cent higher than the base fare
and ending at 50 per cent more for AC-II tier and 40 per cent for AC-III tier.
These “Flexi fares”,
will be effective from Friday but will not affect those who have booked their
tickets already.
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The hike will be
applicable across the board — even impacting non-AC classes in Duronto — but
will exclude First AC and Executive Chair Car classes in all premium trains.
There are 42 Rajdhanis, 46 Shatabdis and 54 Durontos currently in operation.
The hikes have been
effected in base fares; add-on fees, including catering, reservation and
superfast charges, and service tax, will remain at current rates.
According to the new
formula, the first 10 per cent of berths will be sold at current base fares,
with 10 per cent hikes for every subsequent 10 per cent of berths sold up to
the halfway mark. The structure then gets staggered — the last 50 per cent of
berths in AC-II tier will be sold at a flat 50 per cent more than base fare;
the last 60 per cent of berths in AC-III tier will be sold at 40 per cent more
than base fare.
Typically, base fare
constitutes between 78 and 86 per cent of the total fare depending on sectors
and classes.
According to current
booking patterns in premium trains, the first 30-40 per cent gets sold out
within minutes when bookings open 90 days before the date of journey, leaving
the tickets that would now come under higher slabs for those who book even a
day later.
For instance, when it
comes to the Mumbai Rajdhani, an AC-II tier passenger will now have to pay a
maximum of Rs 4,055, while the current rate is Rs 2,870 — a 41 per cent
increase when add-on charges are levied. In AC-III tier, a passenger will now
have to pay a maximum of Rs 2,736 while the current rate is Rs 2,085 — a 31 per
cent hike, including add-on charges.
In comparison, a
Mumbai-Delhi air ticket booked on Wednesday on a budget airline for December
cost Rs 2,857.
While official sources
said that the move has been cleared by the “highest level” of the government,
Railways officials described the latest decision as an “experiment”.
“This is on
experimental basis. Like any move, this will also be reviewed after three-four
months. We expect a mop-up of not more than Rs 500 crore from this hike,”
Mohammad Jamshed, Railway Board Member (Traffic) told The Indian Express.
“The very low-priced
air tickets that you see are earmarked for very few seats while the majority
seats are sold at high prices as the journey date comes closer. Our prices
remain far lower than that,” said Jamshed. The Railway Board believes that
the move will also negate the illegal sale of tickets in premium trains by
touts.
The Railways’
passenger revenue target for the current fiscal is Rs 51,000 crore as against
Rs 45,000 crore in the last fiscal, an increase of Rs 6000 crore