Manas Garg Speaks

Presenting Vimal Kumar - the man who has made searching for trains so much easier for everyone with his brilliant website eRail.in. I contacted him through email and he was kind enough to let me ask him a few questions. Here we go!

Hi Vimal! I know you as the creator of eRail.in. Please tell me more about yourself. 
I have done my MCA and live in New Delhi. I currently have 9+ years of experience in software industry
 
eRail.in has become very popular now, given its ease of use. What inspired  you to start this amazing site?
One day I was booking a rail ticket, and found that it is very difficult even for a technical guy like me to find the right information and so it would be far more difficult for other people to do the same! That was the time when I thought of making a site which would be useful to people. Also, I was always a fan of trains and always loved to read time tables :) But again it was difficult to find the trains in a time table. I knew a lot more could be done through nice software and that is when eRail.in was born. I have put in all my years of experience in the eRail.in website , it has been built with a passion. The idea was to make it as user friendly as possible.
 
We see that the Indian Railways site is so cluttered with advertisements and pops, and your site runs only a few text ads. Any comments? 
I do not find any reason for the railways to give ads on their site. They have such huge budgets at their disposal - they should not irritate their users. Earlier there were image ads on eRail but some users found them distracting so I discontinued them and have only text ads. I believe that all users who come to the site should get value for the time they spend there.
 
You must get a lot of thank you mails for starting this site. How does it feel? Any feedback that you have incorporated into your site?
Yes I get regular mails. People tell me that they save a lot of time by using eRail.in. It does feel great. There have been regular feedback and I have been incorporating it all. I would like to thank all users of eRail.in who have provided their regular feedback.
 
Many students dream of starting their own online portals. What is your advice to them?
If one wants to create a portal, they should first identify the NEED and should have passion to fulfill that need. India is a big market and anything which relates to the masses will always work. So if you find any idea just go for it. It is the right time. To see whether you are correct or not – just experiment. There is no one who can tell you if it is wrong or right. Follow your instinct and do it. At least you will have the satisfaction that you did what you wanted to do. You have one life and you have to do it in this one only!
 
What is the next project after erail.in? 
I plan to make eRail.in multilingual and another travel related website will be coming up which would help travelers even more!
 
What do you like to do in your spare time? 
Usually I do not get spare time, If I get some I like to think about how to improve my work :)

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Wow! This is great inspiration for all of us who want to start our own websites! Vimal says that there is one life and we should just go for it - so true! Thanks Vimal, thanks a lot for taking out the time and sharing your thoughts with us. We wish you all success!

It is unlikely that you have not visited eRail.in, but if you really haven’t, then you should definitely take a look. I’m sure you’ll go back to it again!