Mumbai: Breaking news on television, a constant feature at home, may soon, be available on board trains too. The railway ministry has asked all its zones to invite tenders for on-board telecast of entertainment and information programmes to offer personalised services to passengers.

The ministry has asked every zone to select private parties that can also offer value-added services like voice services (telephony), internet, satellite radio and booking of cabs and hotels, all on a moving trains. Western Railway, incidentally, was the first zone in India to successfully telecast pre-recorded programmes on board the Mumbai-Ahmedabad Shatabdi last year. The ministry now wants to telecast live programmes on a train on the move.

 

Ministry of railways executive director (passenger marketing) R K Tandon is hopeful of live telecast on board trains. He said, “The private party will have to provide hardware, networking and communication for telecast of programmes. They will also have to undertake commercial marketing of the project.” Indian Railways, on its part, will allow them to air advertisements between programmes and also on-board branding to recover revenue.

 

Officials said value added services that were previously unsuccessful like net-surfing was also on its wish-list.