“Forward ever, backward never: onwards with Breaking Through”
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
Ministry of Road Transport & Highways

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