Tag Archives: Indian Railways

Worst Indian Government Websites

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India is boasting about its growth towards an e-economy. More than anybody else it’s the Government who promote this so-called e-Governance. There is no doubt it will make our life easier. No more long queues to pay the bills, no more delays in getting the services done and so on. It sounds really nice but the bitter fact is, once you visit these government websites which are intended to provide you services, you will feel the traditional system was much better. These websites are cluttered with navigational issues, design, usability flaws and are hardly updated.

It is really shame to a country, which has uncountable number of technology talents and where even a 15 year old kid can develop websites which are far better in usability and design than these cluttered Government websites.

Here we list some of the most unfriendly websites owned by the Indian Government.  

IRCTC

Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation website might be the one, which is better compared to the rest of the list. It is supposedly the first government website that launched a mobile application for easy access through the phones. But as many say, the website is not free from problems. The first thing is the content load. It will eat a considerable amount of your time for logging in, especially in the morning time. The site is not optimized for all types of internet connections, so irrespective of your connection speed, it will be difficult to effectively ‘search,’ book or cancel tickets. By the time you clear the log-in hurdles and reach the final step to book a ticket, you will have probably missed out the available seats.

BSNL

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited’s website seems to be faster than the earlier one and is comparatively clutter free. But the content in the website is poorly sorted. So if you have to get particular information, be prepared to traverse through the entire site and the countless number of tabs which keeps on increasing as you go in. And nevertheless to say, the design of the website is so poor with a wide array of color schemes and distracting BSNL flashes, which runs on top.

Indian Passport

Well, we know getting a passport is not an easy thing. But if you tried to apply for one through the Indian Passport website handled by the ministry of external affairs, you will feel it as the worst decision ever made. It is a herculean task to follow the countless instructions and fill the details so precisely. Consider the worst case scenario, if anything happens with your system during the process, you will have to repeat the lengthy process all over, whether it is for taking a new passport or renewing your old one.

MTNL

Well, do not even try to access website of the State-run MTNL network. The site usually takes more than five minutes to load and even if it’s loaded, it will surprise you with the looks of a website coming from the early 90’s.

Even though the website contains almost all the needed information, it has got serious navigational problems. The advertisements running on the site hides information and links on the drop down menu.

Environment Ministry

The environment ministry’s website seems to be fine, except the un-aligned boxes of information in the home page.  But once you go further inside the home page, you will get information which is more than five months old. It has got serious update issues, mainly the press and events section where the people usually look for information, were last updated more than a year ago.

Department of Health and Family Welfare

 

This website probably is the most shameful one. The website is run under the ministry of health and family welfare and has more than 60 active links. But the problem is most of these links lead to pages which greets you with the information “coming soon,” or will redirect you to some files or links outside the network.

National Disaster Management Authority

The Governments National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) website is itself a disaster. The website is an extreme example of poor design with the tabs and names overlapping with one other and the ill designed cursors. The top portion of the website is covered with blurry flash which has unrecognizable next and previous buttons. It looks like the government must have a disaster management authority, especially for all its websites.

Agricultural Marketing Information Network- Ministry

Of Agriculture

The website Agmarknet, of the agriculture ministry says “A step towards Globalization of Indian Agriculture.” The website allows you to check the daily prices for the anything from vegetables to cereals and also offer guidelines for agricultural projects and other information from the ministry. The interesting thing is that the website will give you same feel of entering a real market, with things spread all over the place.

Indian Railways, Now Tracked by Satellites

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The Railways are soon shifting to a satellite-based tracking system to get the exact time information regarding the movement of train. The pilot project implemented on Chennai section is soon to be completed. It will be in production from next year.

P Bala Bhaskar Rao, VP (Operations) of Hyderabad-based Avantel Limited, “We will commence installation of the Mobile Satellite Service (MSS) system from the next week covering 107 locomotives that run on the Chennai section. The installation of the technology will be completed by February of next year,”as quoted by Business Standard.

Indian Railways, Now Tracked by Satellites

India’s first certified indigenous MSS system for defense and aerospace applications has been developed by Avantel and the first 12 unit of system including four spare systems is to be delivered to Boeing Company under a contract worth about $ 2.2 million. Supplied by the American aircraft company to Indian defense forces, these MSS systems would be fitted on 8 P-8I Maritime Reconnaissance Aircraft.

The Boeing Aerospace in compliance with Directorate General of Aeronautical Quality Assurance (DGAQA) standards produced the MSS system for the P-8I. According to the company, it has been qualified by the Center for Military Airworthiness & Certification (Cemilac).

Rao said that the system involving the technology is same for the aircraft and Indian Railways. The MSS-based tracking system is planned to be implemented in the Railways across the country once its pilots demonstrate its efficiency.

The first phase of the Real Train Information System, based on the satellite imaging for rail navigation has been opened by the Railway. It has been mutually developed by the Research Design and Standards Organization and IIT-Kanpur. Despite the fact that the locomotives are fitted with GPS equipment, the system runs on Global System for Mobile (GSM) communication technology that is used in mobile phones.

After the implementation of new system the movement and location of each train will be tracked on a realtime basis. Rao said, “Once the system is in place several value-added services like providing passengers with accurate information on train arrival time among others will be developed around it,”
Avantel has also come up with ultra high frequency (UHF) communication systems and products, and it will be delivered to Antrix Corporation, the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) under a contract for 25-crore in the next six months.

The Indian army extensively uses the MSS system mainly on the Navy warships and Cost Guard vessels. The MSS system for defence applications are developed from various platforms like submarines, torpedoes, ground-based vehicles, ships, and aircraft.

Founded in 1995, Aventel had started developing Type-C terminals for one-way messaging following a technology transfer agreement with Isro in 2000. A turnover of Rs 24.5 crore was recorded for the BSE-listed company in 2001 and revenue of 26 crore is expected for the present year. Its share closed up at 58.25 whereas its 52-month price stood at 69.5 and 41 respectively.

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