The Indian Railways, the world's largest employer, will introduce advanced mobile telephones for train staff to cut down on its high accident rate, a report said Saturday.
The telephones will make emergency calls supersede all other communication and let employees talk to more than one colleague at a time, the Business Line newspaper said.
The report said the state-owned railways would bid between Siemens of Germany and Nortel of Canada, the only two manufacturers of the telephone system known as the Global System for Mobiles for Railways.
Currently, Indian train drivers and guards speak to one another through walkie-talkies with limited range.
Train staff communicate to stations at telephones placed at every 1.5 kilometres (one mile) of track - an arrangement that at times "results in costly delays," a railway officer was quoted as saying.
The newspaper said the mobile telephones will first be given to staff on a train that travels 2,500 kilometres (1,500 miles) between the violence-torn states of Kashmir and Assam passing through New Delhi.
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