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The Union Minister of Railways, Shri Lalu Prasad, has said that security of rail services including passengers continued to be accorded top priority on the railways. Taking salute at the Investiture Parade of the Railway Protection Force (RPF) here this morning, Shri Prasad congratulated the Force for their good work in improving security of passengers in trains and in rail premises.
The Minister announced a corpus of Rs. One Crore towards Railway Security Welfare Fund. He also announced a 50-room Mess for non-gazetted RPF personnel at the Lucknow RPF Training Centre. The Minister exuded confidence that three women squads of the Force formed recently to guard women passengers were working well. He also announced the filling up of 8,000 vacancies in RPF departmentally and not through Railway Recruitment Boards (RRBs), as it took longer time. The Railway Minister called upon the Force to improve their vigilance by ensuring proper security to passengers, apart from safeguarding assets and consignments on the Railways. In this connection, the Minister announced Awards of Rs. 1,00,000/-, Rs.50,000/- and Rs. 25,000/- annually to the RPF personnel for their exemplary performance. He hoped that the enhanced power of police conferred on them would make the Force perform still better.
The Minister raised the concern of the government over the growing incidents of intoxicating passengers in trains by miscreants and asked the RPF to stop such menace in order to improve passenger safety. He urged the RPF to do its best to ensure security of rail passengers. The Government was ever ready to provide necessary cooperation to the Force for keeping it in the fine fettle.
Talking of modernization of Indian Railways to meet the challengers of emerging globalization of the country’s economy, the Minister said that in keeping with the direction of the Prime Minister, an action plan for all-round modernization of Indian Railways that included high speed train services and a dedicated high speed freight traffic corridor was being prepared for presentation to the Prime Minister and the Planning Commission. The total package would provide for an estimated expenditure of Rs.46,000 crores. There would be no dearth of resources, he added
The Minister pinned up 34 medals on the recipients of the Force, which included one Police Medal for Gallantry, three President’s Police Medals for Distinguished Service and 30 Police Medals for Meritorious Service.
Earlier, the Director General of RPF, Shri A.K. Suri, in his welcome address, gave an overview of the Force and how it has emerged as one of the efficient Armed Forces of the Union.
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