News Analysis India

Tag: indian railways

  • Railways not in a position to restore concessional fares for senior citizens, says minister

    Express News Service

    NEW DELHI: Even after the COVID-19 pandemic has subsided to a great extent and train services have been restored to their full capacity, Indian Railways has no immediate plans to restore the concessional fares for elderly people that used to be offered. The Ministry of Railways had suspended the facility of concessional fares to senior citizens with effect from March 23, 2020 amid the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country and subsequent cancellation of train services. Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has categorically expressed the inability of the ministry to restore the concession fares at present because of the shortfall in the revenues of the railways on account of suspension of passenger services during the COVID-induced lockdown.

    “There is no plan to restore this concession at present,” the minister replied to a question in writing in the Lok Sabha a couple of days ago. The minister also said that over 6.61 crore elderly people (senior citizens) had travelled so far by trains without availing concession in the train fares after the railways suspended the facility. According to the written reply of the minister, 1.87 crore senior citizens travelled by trains between March 20 and March 31 in 2021. He also added that 4.74 crore senior citizens undertook journey by trains between April 1 in 2021 and February 2022 without availing concession in fares.

    Prior to the suspension of concessional fares to elderly people in March 2020, approximately 12 crore senior citizens had availed the concession during 2019-20 and the revenue foregone due to concessions for the same period was around Rs 1,667 crore. At present, the railways is continuing concessions only to four categories of “Divyangajan” (differently-abled passengers) and eleven categories of patients and students.

    “On account of challenges posed by the COVID-induced lockdown, total passenger revenue generated during 2020-21 has been less in comparison to the year 2019-20. The cost of granting concessions to all categories of passengers, including senior citizens, is not desirable at present,” the minister replied in writing.

  • Indian Railway merges eight service cadres into one newly created cadre

    By Express News Service

    NEW DELHI: The eight service cadres of Indian Railways (IR) would soon be merged into one newly created Indian Railways Management Service (IRMS). This has been decided by the government to bring uniformity in the categories of services for encouraging the fast and delivery-oriented decision-making process in the railways.

    The union government on last Wednesday formally issued a gazette notification about the proposed merger of existing eight services of Indian Railway, which fall under the Central Civil Services, into one.

    Railway sources said that the merger has been decided with an aim to bring about a uniform appointment system reducing the inter-departmental lengthy process besides expediting the coordinated and fast decision making in the organization.

    In fact, the union cabinet in 2019 on December 24, had approved the merger plan of eight services into one based on the recommendations of the Bibek Debroy committee report of 2015, in which strong recommendations were laid down for restructuring of railway board and the railway ministry respectively.

    According to railway sources, the existing Indian Railway Services of Engineering (IRSE), the Indian Railway Service of Mechanical Engineering (IRSME), the Indian Railway Service of Electrical Engineering (IRSEE), the Indian Railways Service of Signal Engineers (IRSSE), the Indian Railway Store Services (IRSS), the Indian Railway Traffic Services (IRTS), the Indian Railway Account Service (IRAS) and the Indian Railway Personnel Service (IRPS) would merger into one, the Indian Railway Management Service in near future.

    The merger of existing services would be carried out accordingly from junior level to high-grade levels paving a way for the officers of only newly created Indian Railway Management Service to become eligible for the chairman and the members of railway board posts in the future.

    Meanwhile, the government has excluded the Indian Railways Protection Force Service and the Indian Railways Medical Service from merging into the IRMS.

    Railways sources said that process is on to complete the unification of eight existing services at the earliest.

    As per recommendations, the officers of eight different services would continue working on the same current posts as only their services would change from existing to newly created services after the merger.

    “In future, the recruitment to IRMS will be made through the UPSC (civil services) in proper consultation with UPSC and the DOPT”, said a railway source.

    The decision for unification was taken in the suggestion of all levels of officers during “Parivartan Sangoshthi”, organised on December 7, 2019, in New Delhi.

    Sources said that the idea of a new Indian Railway Management Service dates back to 1994 when the Tondon committee had first recommended this unified service.

  • President lauded government in modernising railways, in his address to Houses of Parliament

    Express News Service

    NEW DELHI: “My government is modernising the Indian Railways at a fast pace. In the last 7 years, 24,000 km of railway routes have been electrified,” President Ram Nath Kovind said while addressing the joint sittings of both the Houses of Parliament at the start of the budget sessions on Monday.

    Expressing the commitment of the government for developing railway infrastructure, the President said the New Vande Bharat trains and the new vista dome coaches have added new feathers to the Indian railways.  He also informed both the Houses that the works of new rail tracks and double-railway tracks are being carried out rapidly.

    He, citing the re-developed Rani Kamalapati in Madhya Pradesh and the Gandhinagar Railway stations in Gujarat as world-class railway stations, lauded the railways for providing the new glimpses of modern India through these stations.

    He also termed the arch rail bridge, being constructed across the river Chenab in Kashmir, in his address to both the Houses of the Parliament as a centre of attraction. “It is a matter of pride for the country that the capitals of North-East’s all states are coming on the railway map with the efforts of my government,” he said, adding that the rail and air connectivity has now no longer a dream for the people of north-east states, namely Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura.

    Besides this, touching upon the government’s works on public transport, the President said that eleven new metro routes have been stated for benefiting the people in 8 states every day.

    “India is now also among the four countries in the world having largest driverless train networks,” he claimed and further added that an Indigenous Automatic Train System (IATS) has also been developed in the country symbolising the growing capability of ‘Make in India’.

    In his address to the joint sittings of members of both the Houses, the President further cited that the railway ran more than 1900 Kissan rails during the Covid periods on 150 routes for transporting about 6 lakh MT of agriculture products.

    Meanwhile, the Indian railway claimed on Monday that three zones out of 16, have achieved the targets of total electrification. “In a major leap towards 100 per cent electrification, 3 zones of Indian Railways namely West Central Railway, the Kolkata Metro and the East Coast Railway have been fully electrified reducing carbon footprints,” the ministry of Railway claimed.

  • Railway integrated all 695 hospitals & health centres with Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission

    By Express News Service

    NEW DELHI: In a significant achievement to strengthen the health care facilities, the railways has integrated its all the 695 hospitals and health centres with the ‘Aayushman Bharat Digital Mission’ (ABDM) on a mission mode.

    The integration of all hospitals and health centres has been done by combining the Hospital Management Information System (HMIS) the RailTel Corporation of India- one of the PSUs of the Ministry of Railways, in collaboration with the National Health Authority.

    Upon successful integration of railway’s all the 695 hospitals and health centres with the ABDM, the RailTel claimed that the integration of health wings of Indian railways will not only benefit around 80 lakhs railway employees, pensioners and their family members but also enable the general public to avail of the benefits of health care facilities available at the railway hospitals and the health centres in a seamless digital manner.

    Prior to this integration, the RailTel Corporation of India had implemented a Web-based multi-module HMIS in all the 695 hospitals and health centres of Railway across the country.

    Now, both these two systems – ABDM and the HMIS have successfully integrated for the benefit of patients and health administrations. Under the HMIS system, a mobile app- HMIS Patient Mobile AAP has also been created for easy and fast information access to patients related to their OPD registrations, doctors’ prescriptions, lab reports and others.

    Puneet Chawala-the CMD of RailTel, through a statement, said, “RailTel is committed to playing a major role in the digital transformational activities taking place in the country. The integration of all hospitals and health centres of railways with the ABDM will gradually ensure the reach of good health facilities to every citizen of this country.”

  • ‘Indian Rly needs high level of capital expenditure to beocme an engine of growth by 2030’

    Express News Service

    NEW DELHI: As the Economic Survey 2021-22 came out with details on Monday, the Indian Railway sector will emerge to get a very high level of capital expenditure for becoming the engine of national growth in the next 10 years.

    With a good number of mega projects in the pipeline, the railways will have no other way but to see a very high level of capital expenditures to accelerate its capacity growth by 2030.

    The capital expenditure (Capex) has increased from Rs 45,980 crore per annum in 2014 to Rs 2.15 lakh crore – around five times the Capex of 2014.

    As the Economic Survey further puts it, “As more projects are taken on hand and several sources of capital finding are developed, the Capex will increase further in the coming years and the railway system will actually emerge as an engine of national growth.”

    Touching upon the National Rail Plan, the Economic Survey has laid down the road map for capacity expansion of the railway networks also by 2030 to cater the growth up to 2050.

    “It envisages the creation of a future-ready railway system that is able to not only meet the passengers’ demand but also increase the modal share of railways freight to 40-45 per cent from the present level of 26-27 per cent,” the survey pointed out.

    As the survey has categorically stated the Indian Railway has identified 58 projects as Super Critical, targeted to be completed by December 2022 while 68 projects have been identified as Critical and have been targeted to be completed by March 2024. These projects are focused on increasing capacity on routes that serve major mineral, industrial hubs along with the ports and major consumption centres under the National Rail Plan, the survey said.

    The survey also pointed out that the freight ecosystem under the National Rail Plan is expected to grow from the current level of 26.27 per cent to 8200MT by 2030. At present, the railway capacity is barely able to carry 1220MT which is around 26.27 per cent of the modal share.

  • Indian Railways rename train guards as ‘train managers’; salaries, duties remain unchanged

    Express News Service

    NEW DELHI: The Indian Railways after prolonged consideration has decided to redesignate the post of the train “guard” as “train manager” with immediate effect.In a new circular issued to the general managers (GMs) of all zones, the Railway Board on Thursday, January 13, 2022, informed the zones to redesignate the “guard” as “train manager”.The assistant guard would now be called as assistant train manager while the goods train guard would be called the “goods train manager’.In the same way, Railways has also redesignated the senior passenger guard as senior passenger train manager while the posts of mail and express train guard have been redesignated as “mail or express train manager”.”The revised designation will not entail any change in the pay scales, methods of recruitment, existing duties and responsibilities, seniority and avenues of promotion”, Railways officials have categorically clarified.Official sources said that the revised designation will improve the motivation level of guards now as train managers.

  • In pandemic-hit 2020-21, railways earned over Rs 500 crore from Tatkal, premium Tatkal tickets

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: The Railways earned Rs 403 crore from tatkal ticket charges, an additional Rs 119 crore from premium tatkal tickets, and Rs 511 crore from dynamic fares during 2020-21, even as much of its operations remained suspended through most of the year due to the Covid pandemic, revealed an RTI reply.

    Passengers in these three categories are usually last minute travellers who avail these services mostly for emergency travel by paying premium charges.

    In a reply to a RTI filed by Madhya Pradesh-based Chandra Shekhar Gaur, the Railways said that it earned Rs 240 crore from dynamic fares, Rs 353 crore from tatkal tickets and Rs 89 crore from premium tatkal charges in the financial year 2021-22 till September.

    In the 2019-20 financial year, when there were no restrictions in train operations, the national transporter earned Rs 1,313 crore from dynamic fares, Rs 1,669 from tatkal tickets and Rs 603 crore from premium tatkal tickets.

    The data from the railway ministry comes a month after a Parliamentary Standing Committee on Railways remarked that the charges levied on tatkal tickets are “a little unjustifiable” and put a huge burden particularly on those passengers who are financially weak and are forced to travel in urgency to meet their kith and kin or so for a very short distance also.

    The committee desired that the ministry devise measures for a pro rata fare for distance travelled.

    Tatkal ticket charges have been fixed as a percentage of fare at the rate of 10 per cent of basic fare for second class and 30 per cent of basic fare for all other classes subject to minimum and maximum.

    Under the premium version, which was introduced in 2014 in select trains, 50 per cent of tatkal quota tickets are sold using the dynamic fare system.

    The committee also said that flexi or dynamic pricing appeared to be “somewhat discriminatory” given the facts that fares of Rajdhanis, Shatabdis and Durontos are already higher as compared to other mail and express trains and are almost at par and at some instances higher than those of budget airlines.

    Data also shows that over 52 lakh people who were on wait list after finalisation of seat reservation charts could not travel by trains in the first six months of the current fiscal.

    Around 32,50,039 PNRs (passenger name records), against which 52,96,741 passengers had bookings, were auto-cancelled as they were in wait status after preparation of the charts till September of this financial year.

    “The problem is that we do not have enough trains to meet the demand of the general public. Those that can afford the premium fares, spend money to get tatkal tickets. Some trains are out of reach for some who cannot pay the dynamic fares. Even if we book in advance, the tickets are wait listed in most trains,” said Sujeet Rai, who travels to see his parents in Bihar every year.

    “What I do is book tickets in advance and when they are wait listed till the very end, I try and get tatkal tickets and cancel the previously booked ticket. Even if its not an emergency and you have made plans with your family, you have to try to get confirmed tickets,” he said.

    While the Railways did not launch any new trains during Covid-hit 2020-21, it brought in as many as 144 new train services in 2019-20, 266 services in 2018-2019, 170 services in 2017-2018 and 223 services in 2016-2017.

  • Put on thinking caps, come up with ideas: Union minister to young officers in railways

    Express News Service

    NEW DELHI: Young officers in the Indian Railways have been asked to put on their thinking caps and come up with ideas for the future.

    Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Sunday asked young officers to envisage how they would like to see the railways by the time they reach senior positions like that of chairman or members of the railway board.

    Conducting an inspection on the Delhi-Rewari section, Vaishnaw gave a pep talk to a group of young officers motivating them to start ideating for the railways.

    “You all have to decide who will run the railways and what would be its future,” Vaishnaw told the young officers on board the MR special window-trailing train during the inspection.

    Vaishnaw motivated the young officers accompanying him on the inspection to explore new ideas for bringing facilities in the railways to world class levels at lower cost with higher sustainability and affordability for the passengers.

    “Start thinking from right now that when you become the chairman, member or go on to higher posts in the railway board in future, how would you like to see the railways being run,” he told the officers.

    The minister further asked an officer to circulate this as a message on the official WhatsApp groups of railway officers.

  • Public Private Partnership mode in Indian Railway quite successful, says Union Railway minister

    Express News Service

    NEW DELHI: The Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode, formulated by the Ministry of Railways under a Participative Policy (PP)-2012 has proved quite successful in yielding desired results.

    Aimed at promoting investment in developing rail connectivity and infrastructures by roping in the strategic partners and other investors, the PPP mode in railways has helped the railways in achieving the set goals.

    Sharing this, Union Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that the PPP mode was found a quite successful especially in providing ‘last mile rail connectivity’ to many ports and industrial clusters.

    As the minister further shared, 14 projects in Indian Railways worth Rs 9,234 crore have so far been completed through the PPP mode. “10 more projects of Rs 19,417 crore are under implementation, including the projects related to coal connectivity and the port connectivity,” the minister stated.  Seven more projects of Rs 13,971 crore have already been given in-principle approval for their further commencement. 

    He also said that the railway is carrying out a massive modernisation process by introducing new technology-driven facilities and amenities to passengers.

    “The modern technology mainly include adaptation of higher horse power locomotives, modernization of signaling and telecommunication, station development and IT-enabled services for improved customer interface and others”, the minister stated. 

    He said that all possible funding mechanisms are explored for modernisation of railway systems and introduction of new technologies, which are met through both from budgetary and extra budgetary resources.

  • Killer addiction: Boys playing PUBG run over by train in UP’s Mathura

    By PTI

    MATHURA: Two teenage boys engrossed in playing PUBG on their mobile phones were run over by a train in Laxmi Nagar area here, police said on Sunday.

    According to the police, 18-year-old Kapil and 16-year-old Rahul, both students of class 10, had gone out for a walk in the morning.

    But they then got engaged in playing the game on their mobile, SHO of Jamuna Paar Police Station said.

    Both the mobile phones were found at the accident site between Mathura Cantonment and Raya stations.

    While one was damaged, the other had the game running on it, the police officer said.

    In-charge of Mathura Cantonment GRP Inspector D K Dwivedi said it was not clear has run over the two boys.