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MAJOR DECISIONS AND INITIATIVES
RAILWAYS
The UPA Government completes one year on May 21, 2005. During this period, the Government has taken several important initiatives. Some of these are being brought out in the series ‘Major Decisions and Initiatives’.
Modernisation of Railways, safety and security of passengers, replacement and renewal of assets, track renewal, cleanliness, improvement in passenger amenities, control over expenditure and prevention of leakages of revenue have been the hall mark of the overall developmental plan and expansion of Indian Railways, which has been accorded a higher priority in the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) by the Government.
Contribution to GDP
Indian Railways has today grown to a national net work of 63,221 route kilometres, moving on an average 1.58 million tonnes of freight and 14 million passengers per day. It has also absorbed advancements in railway technology with the requirements of moving large volumes of freight and passenger traffic, thus contributing its share for maintaining higher GDP.
The freight loading for the Indian Railways during 2004-05 has been 601.89 MT, which is 7.98 per cent higher than that in the preceding year, apart from being 0.31 per cent above the revised higher target. During the year, Indian Railwas recorded highest ever-incremental freight loading of 44.50 MT in its history. Net Tonne Kilometres (NTKM), which is a measure of the total volume of traffic, increased by 7.90 per cent compared to the previous year. In the passenger segment, anticipated growth in originating passengers has also been achieved.
With several innovative measures for improving rail services, the financial health of Indian Railways is looking up. It can be said that the Operating Ratio, which is the measuring standard of the financial health of Indian Railway, is likely to stand at 91.2 per cent as against 92.6 per cent budgeted for the year 2004-05.
Increased Connectivity
Indian Railways is contributing towards overall connectivity in the Nation. a total of 1211 Kilometres of Broad Gauge lines comprising 150 Kilometres of new lines, 779 Kilometres of gauge conversions and 282 Kilometres of double lines have been added during the year.
An outlay of Rs 493 crore has been provided to Rail Vikas Yojna during 2005-06 to execute 34 projects which form part of the Golden Quadrilateral and Port connectivity routes.
Three projects in North-Eastern Region – Kumarghat-Agartala and Jiribam-Imphal Road (Tupul) new lines and Lumding-Silchar-Jiribam gauge conversion projects were declared as national projects.
World Class Infrastructure
Indian Railways is committed to provide world class infrastructure. During the year, the Government has taken several innovative steps. These include bridge improvement and rehabilitation, 5,566 Kms. of track renewal which is 12 per cent higher than that in the previous year, development of RORO (Roll on Roll of) wagons for transportation of trucks, trial of corrosion resistant aluminum body wagons, introduction of crew friendly cabs, new initiatives to develop guard friendly brake-vans.
Railways have also developed a policy framework for prioritisation of Railway projects. The Government has given the approval for prioritisation of new lines and gauge conversion projects. The first category includes ongoing new lines and gauge conversion projects eight where progress is more than 60 per cent and throwforward is less than Rs.100 crore. Second category includes viable/operationally required projects (four). Third category includes National Projects (four), Projects in Assam & North-Eastern Region (eight), Cost sharing with State Governments (seven projects), Defence funded projects (two), and projects covered under Public-Private partnership (three). The category four, includes other projects (84) of new lines and gauge conversion and not covered in above categories (I, II and III).
Modernisation, Safety and Security
Under a time bound action plan, an all round modernisation at a cost of Rs.24,000 crore has been worked out to modernise, upgrade and augment rail services to the nation in keeping with NCMP.
During the year, major initiatives were taken, which include track circuiting at 492 locations, interlocking of 310 level crossing gates, provision of telephones at 331 gates, and rehabilitation of signaling assets at 262 stations. Work on Anti-Collision Device (ACD) has been taken up by the N.F.Railway on about 1700 RKM.
Safety continues to be accorded top priority. Safety standards have also recorded a phenomenal improvement as consequential train accidents have come down to 234 during the year 2004-05 compared to 325 during the previous year. Number of accidents per million train kilometers is an important safety index, which has comee down to 0.41.
A Technology Mission on Railway Safety has been taken up jointly by IIT, Kanpur and Research Designs and Standard Organisation (RDSO), Lucknow to focus on modern technologies of monitoring, control, communications, design, electronics and materials for railway safety.
To enhance crashworthiness of passenger coaches, a proto type coach shell was designed and developed through ‘computer simulation’ and subjected to actual crash test in March 2005. The test was successful.
As for security of rail services, additional responsibility to Railway Protection Force (RPF) for escorting passenger trains and provision of security in passenger areas have been accorded with effect from July 1, 2004. About 1500 pairs of trains are since being escorted by RPF. Besides, skills of RPF have been upgraded and direct recruitment to the Force, reverted from Railway Recruitment Boards to the original system of recruitment by the Security Department. Sixtyfive special women squads are also operating throughout the country providing security to women commuters.
Public-Private Partnership
The Indian Railways is in the process of setting up a separate authority viz. Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA) through an amendment to the Railway Act 1989 for a better commercial utilisation of railway land. The proposal has been approved by the Cabinet on 08.12.04 and a bill to this effect has been introduced in the Rajya Sabha.
New schemes have been introduced for (i) freight customers to develop their private sidings through cost-sharing (ii) development of integrated warehouse complexes to provide single window service to customers through public-private partnership, and (iii) Leasing of additional space in premium trains for carrying of parcels.
Fare and tariff rationalization
There has been a significant effort at tariff rebalancing and rationalisation of fare and freight structures. In the Railway Budget for 2005-06, there has been no across the board increase in freight rates. Goods tariff have been made simple, rational and transparent – goods tariff to contain only 80 group of commodities instead of over 4,000 commodities as at present. For all commodities freight will now be charged based upon the carrying capacity of wagons.
In a significant move, there has been no increase in passenger fare in the Rail Budget 2005-06. Indian Railways has given concessions in railway fare in various categories, including the widows of Defense personnel killed in action against extremists and terrorists, escorts accompanying deaf and dumb persons, haemophilia patients traveling for treatment and full concessions in second class to unemployed youths attending interviews for jobs in Central and State Governments, farmers and milk producers, for travels to national level institutes for training, rural government school students for study tours once in a year, the rural government school girls for national level entrance examination, transportation of relief materials on priority and free of cost in notified cases, and for carrying dead bodies of the patients undergoing treatment in Government hospitals.
Towards e-governance
Tatkal Reservation Scheme has revamped to enable passengers to travel at short notice. Now all mail/express trains have Tatkal accommodation. Procedure for obtaining Tatkal Tickets has also been simplified. Availability of Tatkal berths has been increased by 16 times in AC and 6 times in non-AC classes.
Internet Ticketing now covers 140 important cities. The Internet hours of reservation have also been extended to 0400 hrs. to 2330 hrs. with effect from March 15, 2005. Reservations through mobile phones was launched as the Mobile Phones are available with nearly 45 million users. It is also proposed to extend the booking of tickets through landline phones also.
Integrated Train Enquiry System has been launched for knowing Train Running Status, PNR Status, and availability of accommodation through Interactive Voice Recording System. National Train Enquiry System has also been established to provide updated position to the passengers. As a trial pilot project, two Call Centres at Patna and Bangalore, have been commissioned on November 29, 2004. These Centres will have the capacity to handle one lakh calls a day. The system operates on the ‘Real Time Input’ basis by the Control Officers across the country. A Web linkage has also been provided on the Website (www.trainenquiry.com).
All air conditioned coaches will be fitted with electrical points for charging cellular phones and laptop computers within a timeframe of one year. This will ensure connectivity to passengers onboard. Electronic Payment Gateway facility has been started in January 2005 and the same will be extended to all major customers. Claims Offices are being computerised to provide online information to claimants about the status of their claims and to help the customers to find unconnected consignments and improve monitoring of the claims cases.
People friendly measures
The Railways are being reoriented to work for the advantage of the poor and common man. The decision to introduce Kulhar, the earthen pot in railways, milk products in the form of Lassi, Matha, buttermilk and other milk products, transportation of farm products including fresh fruits and vegetables from green growing areas to the major consumption centres by refrigerated vans and introduction of handloom and khadi are the major steps in this direction.
A new catering policy has been announced. This stipulates award of licenses of major and small catering units at `A’, `B’ and `C’ category stations through two packet tendering system based on competitive and transparent bidding. The new policy contains stringent conditions on the eligibility criteria for the tenderers to prevent monopolisation by a few. However, for low budget catering contracts at `D’,`E’ and `F’ categories of stations, caterers from lower strata of society, with reservation of 49.5 per cent for Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes and Minorities has been made.
A project for developing environment friendly coach toilet discharge system has been taken up as a technology mission in keeping with the objectives of the Government to eliminate open toilets by 2011-2012. The new design will keep stations and track area clean and eliminate corrosion of tack, track fittings, bogie and under gear parts of the rolling stock.
During the year, 98 trains including 34 Sampark Kranti Express trains have been introduced, 74 trains have been extended and frequency of 28 trains have been increased.
Other Initiatives
The Prime Minister flagged off the Uttar Sampark Kranti Express and dedicated the Jammu Tawi-Udhampur Rail line to the nation at Udhampur on April 13, 2005. The 54.85km Jammu-Udhampur Rail line, which is part of the ambitious Jammu-Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail link, is a unique gift and a fulfillment of UPA Government’s promise to the people of J&K.
It has been decided to set up a railway satellite hub to provide Very Small Aperture Terminal (V-SAT) connectivity to remote and inaccessible locations, which will be very useful for Freight Operation Information System (FOIS) project and for the disaster management communication system.
Optical Fibre Cable (OFC) has been laid on 26,092 route kilometers. OFC has been commissioned on the Golden Quadrilaterals and Diagonals also.
It has been decided to set up another wheel manufacturing plant at an estimated cost of Rs.470 crore at Chhapra. In the plant, the steel/iron scrap generated will be melted and used. This will also enable an annual foreign exchange savings of 19.5 million Euro.
Several measures have been taken to improve the availability of wagons. These include focused attention on works related to improving the throughput, terminal improvement works, electrification of sidings, increase in axle load, rationalisation and simplification of preferential traffic schedule, Other initiatives, which are planned, include introduction of Engine-on-Load Scheme, Wagon Investment Scheme, Mechanised round-the-clock working, Terminal Incentive Schemes, Improvement in Infrastructure and Introduction of Mechanised loading/unloading.
During 2004-05, 320 route kilometers were electrified. So far, about 27.33 per cent of the total route kilometres is electrified.
The Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminal was inscribed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. This is the only Railway station in the world that has been bestowed this honour. In the current year, Cadre review proposals of two services have been finalised and implemented. These services are Indian Railway Stores Service and Railway Board Secretariat Service.
RK:LV
PIB SF-18 (12.5.2005)
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