Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) is integrating the e-wheelchair facility with its tourism portal for the benefit of old, sick and differently-abled people who can pre-book wheelchairs from the comfort of their homes.

The e-wheelchair service, which is currently on IRCTC’s website irctc.co.in, will now be directed to its tourism portal.

As a pilot project, the e-wheelchair service was recently launched at New Delhi railway station, informed IRCTC's chairman and managing director A K Manocha. “The facility will now also be dispensed from IRCTC’s Tourism Facilitation Centre located at platform no. 16 of New Delhi station,” he said.

There are nine wheelchairs available for booking as part of e-wheelchair service. Such a wheelchair can be hired for a maximum of one hour. Those availing the facility need to deposit their government ID card (like Voter ID card, Aadhaar card, PAN etc) with a deposit fee of Rs 500, which will be returned after the wheelchair is returned.

There is no age limit for booking of wheelchairs.

“We plan to launch the facility at other stations also. It would facilitate rail passengers at nominated railway stations in hiring wheelchair for the sick, old, differently-abled and needy passengers. Any passenger having confirmed reservation ticket can book the wheelchair on our website,” he pointed out.

Manocha said there is a proposal to extend this facility to 50 more stations, in phases. Based on responses, more facilities will be on the offering.
 
Launched in 1999, IRCTC, a ‘mini Ratna’ PSU of Indian Railways, handles the catering, tourism, Rail Neer (packaged drinking water), tourism and online rail and air ticketing operations.

NTPC achieves Swachh Vidyalaya target
The NTPC limited, the largest power utility in India, had committed to construct 24,626 toilets in 16,000 schools,  spread over 17 states and 80 districts across the country. NTPC has achieved the completion target of 24,626 toilets under Swachh Vidyalaya Abhiyan. NTPC has taken this initiative for promoting and realizing the dream of a clean India.