RAILWAY MINISTER CALLS FOR AGGRESSIVE
MARKETING FOR INCREASE
IN REVENUE
The Union Minister
of Railways Shri Nitish Kumar has said that in view of fall in
revenue and considerable increase in the volume of both freight
and passenger traffic during the first half of this fiscal, there
was a need for intensifying innovative aggressive marketing by
General Managers of Zonal Railways to improve revenue of railways.
Inaugurating a two-day conference of General Managers of 16 Zones,
Kolkata Metro and six Railway Production Units here today, Shri
Nitish Kumar expressed his concern over fall in the railways revenue
from the target although the volume of traffic has gone up. He
expressed his concern that the desired objectives of rationalization
of freight rate and modification in classification of freight
and parcel traffic have not worked. The Minister, however, noted
with satisfaction the fall in expenditure proportionate to the
budget. He, however, directed the General Managers to work hard
to further improve the operating ratio from 92.3 at the end of
2002-2003.
Talking of decentralization
of decision making processes both administrative and financial
from the Minister to the Railway Board down the line to the General
Managers, the Minister hoped that it should improve productivity
of railways in the form of punctuality of trains, efficiency,
safety, increase in revenue and timely completion of projects.
Touching upon safety
of rail services, the Minister dwelt at length on public perception
of Railways in terms of punctuality, cleanliness and safety and
asked the General Managers to improve these considerably as these
three factors determined efficiency of rail services. In the area
of safety particularly in the context of law and order and terrorist
threat to the rail operations,
the Railway Minister asked the General Managers to coordinate
with State authorities in order to ensure safety of rail services.
The Minster asked the General Managers to standardize quality
in procurements of safety related items and make it uniform on
all Indian Railways for improving safety. He also called upon
them to standardize the mechanism of transparency and openness
in tenders and work to make tenders free from the influence of
mafia. The Minister said that the process of tender and submission
of tender documents should be hassle-free and sacrosanct. He also
asked General Managers to devolve decentralization of administrative
and financial powers down the line to Divisional Railway Managers
and below for efficient rail services. The Minister called for
improving track fittings, removal of wheel fracture through better
inspection and quality control. He also asked General Managers
to discard Durgapur Steel Plant produced wheels to ensure fracture
free wheels and better safety. The Minister asked General Managers
to speed up works under the Special Railway Safety Fund and concentrate
on removal of rail failure, hot axle and composite brakelock.
The Minister exuded confidence that while a Technology Mission
on Safety in collaboration with Indian Institute of Technology
was underway, the Indian Railways with a unique combination of
technocrats and managerial wizards should do their best to improve
safety, so that it continued to be the safest mode of bulk public
transportation. In regard to disposal of scrap, he said the electronic
weighing machines procured for standard measurement of scrapped
items to plug leakages of revenues must function efficiently and
be properly maintained.
The Minister of State
for Railways Shri Basanagouda R. Patil in his address spoke at
length on improving safety and productivity. The Chairman Railway
Shri R. K. Singh said the safety enjoyed top priority on Indian
Railways and it needed to be addressed with attendant vigil and
diligence.
The conference of
General Managers has been convened for a midterm review of plan
performance, timely completion of ongoing rail projects and improving
safety measures. The representatives of five Railway Federations
also attended the meeting.
