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.
