28th October, 2003
Ministry of Railways  


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.