To make their customer’s journey more exciting and fun as more and more people shift to the flight mode of transport from trains, air tickets becoming cheaper and falling in the affordable bracket, The Indian Railways had introduced a proposal to provide massages onboard earlier this month. But the idea was met with grave backlash and so the proposal has been promptly withdrawn keeping in compliance with its rejection. Yay or nay? Read on to find out what went wrong.
Western Railway has decided to withdraw the proposal of providing Head and Foot massage services to the passengers of trains originating from Indore. pic.twitter.com/4FLc7yAtHR
— Western Railway (@WesternRly) June 15, 2019
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The Service
Around 40 trains (39 to be precise), leaving from Indore city in India were going to soon provide all passengers with massage services. You could have availed easily a head massage or a relaxing foot massage or even both of them for a price of Rs 100 each.
The Motivation
This step was taken to provide a more attractive feature to the customers that would definitely see an increase in generating revenue for the Indian Railways. They also thought it would see an increase in the number of passengers as well.
What Went Wrong
The proposal was met with backlash and rejected by the Railway Administration. Many reasons propelled this rejection such as how the discomfort of female passengers was not taken into consideration and also how there was no space in the trains currently to even accommodate such a service.
Western Railway Senior PRO Jitendra Kumar Jayant: A proposal of providing head & foot massage services on 29 trains, had been put forward by Ratlam Division. Railway admn has rejected the proposal respecting the views of the people's representatives who had criticised it. (15.06) pic.twitter.com/sdz9vwnqqN
— ANI (@ANI) June 15, 2019
Moreover, we all know the state of the washrooms in the Indian Railways with absolutely no maintenance and no plan of a responsible way of managing waste. Then comes food and water. More than once, we have come across news of how stale food and bad water has been used to make meals that lead to sickness and in some situations even serious conditions.
Before these basic needs are not sorted out, to jump to massages on a train was just not worth it and that too a poorly researched idea that it did not take into account comfort of fellow passengers and lack of space.
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