Spellings being checked for Tamil, Malayalam railway tickets

Four teams of commercial department of the Southern Railway (SR) zone – one at Chennai for Tamil and three more for Malayalam (Palakkad, Thiruvananthapuram and Chennai) – are busy translating the station names to regional languages. 

Southern Railway (SR) officials realised the challenge that awaited them when they realised that there were several ways to spell Tamil and Malayalam names in English. “Avadi can be spelt as Aavadi, Avaadi and Avadi in English. For a non-Tamil/Malayalam speaking or only English-speaking traveller, it could be misleading. So we must ensure that the translation of stations names was accurate,” a senior official told DT Next. 

“The translation work will be over in less than two weeks. Then the data must be triple checked and handed over to CRIS, which developed the software. CRIS can put the software to use the same day we deliver it to them,” he added. 

Aseervatham Achary, member of Passengers Amenities Committee of Union Railway Ministry, who has been raking up the issue for a while now, says; “A Tamil speaking traveller who cannot read English/Hindi may not know if the ticket issued to him in Madurai is for Dindigul or Trichy. Therefore, printing tickets in regional languages is imperative.”  Issuing trilingual tickets is expected to start from April 14.