Train timetable and crop price information by SMS:

President launches GovSMS platform

President Mahinda Rajapaksa launched the GovSMS Platform during the inauguration of e-Asia 2009.

Implemented under the e-Sri Lanka initiative by the Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) that functions under the Presidential Secretariat the GovSMS Platform, will facilitate the deployment of SMS-based mobile Government services. It will use a four-digit short code and will be available to subscribers of the majority of the country's mobile and CDMA operators including Dialog GSM, Dialog CDMA, SLT Citylink, Lanka Bell, Suntel, Hutch, Tigo and Airtel.

This GovSMS platform offers an SMS short code, namely, 1919 which is unified across all GSM and CDMA operators, for citizens to access Government service and information via SMS and leverages the existing ICTA-implemented Lanka Gate infrastructure.

There are two services which are accessible via GovSMS, namely train schedule information service and crop price information service. Train schedule information:- SLRD TRAIN Starting Station End Station Example: While the request SMS to get the train schedule from Colombo Fort to Ambalangoda, would be "SLRD TRAIN FOT ABA", the reply would come as "Train from Fort to Ambalangoda 16:45:00hrs 17:24:00hrs". (2) Crop price information:-AGRI PRC Crop code Example:- Here while the request SMS to get the price of the beans would be "AGRI PRC BNS", the reply would be "Bean-Dambulla-50.00".

A nominal fee will be charged for the request. The SMS Station/location name or the code can be used for the request for train schedule information and weather information.