by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : Congress leader P. Chidambaram on Saturday asked if the operating ratio of Indian Railways is the worst and added that if the ratio is close to 100 per cent or has exceeded it, that indicated a “comprehensive failure of management.”
He also asked if it was true that the accounts are being “dressed” to show an Operating Ratio just a little less than 100 per cent.
“What is the Operating Ratio of Indian Railways in 2017-18? Is it the worst ratio in recent years,” Chidambaram tweeted.
“Is it correct that the true Operating Ratio has exceeded 100 per cent? Is it correct that the accounts are being ‘dressed’ to show an Operating Ratio just a little less than 100 per cent,” he asked.
“If the Operating Ratio is close to 100 per cent or has exceeded 100 per cent, that indicates a comprehensive failure of management of the Indian Railways,” Chidambaram said.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Governance, Economy, News, Politics
By Anand Singh,
New Delhi : Moving beyond the five hill networks that are major tourist attractions, Indian Railways is planning to also preserve its old five-metre gauge tracks built during its early days in the British era to promote heritage tourism.
“As part of the strategy to preserve the metre-gauge lines, Indian Railways is planning to preserve few metre-gauge lines, which have the potential to attract more tourists,” a senior Railway Ministry official told IANS, requesting anonymity.
“The decision to preserve the metre-gauge lines was taken at a meeting on February 3. Railway Board Chairman Ashwani Lohani, stressing on the need to preserve the metre-gauge lines to promote the heritage structures of Indian Railways, asked the officials to identify such railway tracks on which the tourism can be promoted,” the official said.
“Thus we have identified five lines for preservation — the 42.27 km Visavadar-Talala line in Gujarat, the 16 km Mhow-Patalpani-Kalakand line in Madhya Pradesh, the 162 km Mavli Junction-Marwar Junction line in Rajasthan, the 171 km Nanpur-Mailani line in Uttar Pradesh and the 47 km Mahur-Harangjao metre-gauge line in Assam,” he said.
“Four of the metre-gauge lines are in working condition, while the one line located in Assam is not operational right now,” he added.
The official also said that the Railway Ministry has written to the zonal railways to check the operational feasibility of these tracks. “Once the response from zonal railways is received by the third week of April, the ministry will formally launch the project,” he said.
Giving details of some of the five lines, the official said: “The Visavadar-Talala metre-gauge line passes through the Gir forest in Gujarat and there is thus a speed restriction. Currently, only three trains pass through this section in the day.”
The Mhow-Patalpani-Kalakund line, the official said, passes through picturesque mountains, valleys, tunnels, ravines and crosses the Choral and Malendi rivers, which makes the journey very memorable, especially after the rains.
According to the official, this line was laid by the British about 150 years ago and passes through of the Vindhyachal mountain range.
The official said that the Nanpur-Mailani metre-gauge railway track in Uttar Pradesh crosses through the Dudhwa Tiger reserve.
The Railways currently operates six trains on the section. The trains are allowed to run at a maximum speed of 30 km per hour, which reduces to 20 km per hour in accident-prone areas.
The British laid this track in the 19th century for transporting timber from Nepal’s forests and from the forests on the border.
Currently, the five hill trains — Darjeeling Himalayan train, Nilgiri Mountain Railway, Kalka-Shimla Railway, Kangra Valley Railway and Matheran Hill Railway — are a major attraction for tourists in India.
(Anand Singh can be contacted at anand.s@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate Jobs, Employment, Government Jobs
New Delhi : The Indian Railways has received over 2.12 crore applications for about one lakh jobs, an official said on Friday.
“The Railway Recruitment Board advertised for the positions last month. Since then over 2.12 crore aspirants have filed online applications from across the country,” the official told IANS.
The last date for applying for the jobs is March 31.
The railways currently employ over 13.5 lakh people and is one of the biggest government employers.
The Ministry had invited online applications for one lakh posts in Group C Level 1 (erstwhile Group D) like track maintainer, points man, helper, gateman and porter and Group C Level 2 categories like assistant loco pilots and technicians through Railway Recruitment Boards websites.
On February 19, the Ministry relaxed the upper age limit by two years for all categories.
“The railways will invite applications for over 9,100 posts in Railway Protection Force (RPF) and Railway Protection Special Force (RPSF) between May 19 and 25 this year,” the official said.
These jobs in the RPF would be mainly for the women. “Currently there are about 2,400 women RPF personnel. After the recruitment, the strength of women personnel would go up to 6,900,” the official added.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Governance, Finance, News, Politics
By Arun Kumar Das,
New Delhi : Faced with massive cost-overruns and procedural wrangles over certain projects, Indian Railways has decided against approving any works above Rs 50 crore without a detailed project report (DPR).
All works costing above Rs 50 crore shall be approved only after preparation of DPRs that contain detailed estimates, except for new lines and gauge conversion, according to a directive issued by the Railway Board last week.
There are more than Rs 1 lakh crore worth of projects pending — some of them for years — across the country due to clearance hurdles and cost-escalations, adding to the financial burden of the cash-strapped Railways.
“Many projects have been pending for years without any substantial progress because these were taken up without any proper planning and detailed estimates,” said a senior Railway Ministry official.
Several projects are stuck with issues like forest clearances, land acquisition, coastal zone regulation and other local issues.
“All this has not only caused cost-escalations but has resulted in a heavy backlog and burden on the financial condition of the Railways,” he added.
As per norms, budgetary allocations have to be made for each of these projects every year. If the projects are dropped, then the money allotted for them can be diverted to profitable and viable projects. But these can’t be deleted by the Railways as they were part of the budget and passed in Parliament and withdrawal has to happen after approval of Parliament.
According to last week’s decision, all these issues would be taken into account in the DPR and the project would be sanctioned on the basis of the detailed estimate now.
If a DPR is prepared, only serious projects will come up and no frivolous or non-feasible ones will be taken up for consideration, the official said.
In order to strengthen its project execution and monitoring mechanism, the Railways has also launched a web-enabled remote eye monitoring system developed by Rail Vikash Nigam Ltd (RVNL).
The national transporter has asked the RVNL to monitor important projects with the use of drones and project management software.
RVNL, a special purpose vehicle created by the Railways for execution of engineering works, has also been asked to develop a special web-enabled project management software to monitor rail projects which can be integrated with monitoring of plans, remote eye monitoring system and images captured by drones.
(Arun Kumar Das is a senior Delhi-based freelance journalist. He can be contacted at akdas2005@gmail.com)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Employment, Government Jobs, News, Politics
Mumbai : An agitation by railway job-seekers that paralysed the Central Railway (CR) suburban train services here for over three hours on Tuesday has been withdrawn.
The agitation demanding railway apprentices’ recruitment resulted in a major rail blockade, police caning and retaliatory stone-throwing.
The morning peak hour suburban and long-distance train services were severely disrupted as hundreds of protestors squatted on the railway tracks between Matunga and Dadar on the CR.
After the intervention of top CR officials and the Railway Ministry with a written assurance to the protestors, the agitation was finally withdrawn at around 10.45 a.m. and the highly-vulnerable system started limping back to normal.
The agitation’s cascading effect led to overcrowding on the Western Railway (WR) with all trains running packed to capacity, on the roads linking Mumbai with the mainland and the Eastern Express and Western Express Highways slicing through the country’s commercial capital.
More than 4.5 million commuters were badly hit for the second consecutive day following a strike called on Monday by drivers of cab aggregators and app-based taxis that disrupted Mumbaikars’ schedules.
Attempting to restore normalcy, the local police resorted to a mild lathi-charge to disperse the protestors. Some retaliated by pelting stones at the police.
At least five protestors and a few police personnel were injured.
The protests were held by activists of the All India Act Apprentice Association (AIAAA) who demanded scrapping of the 20 per cent quota for direct recruitment and jobs for local candidates in all states who have cleared the All India Railway Act Apprentice Exams.
They claimed to have met Railway Minister Piyush Goyal but there was no progress in the matter and they have now threatened to intensify their agitation if their demands were not met.
A Shiv Sena MP from Mumbai Rahul Shewale met top CR officials to resolve the matter and later said that the railways would hire over 12,400 candidates who have cleared their apprenticeship exams.
A CR spokesperson said that there was no provision of giving jobs to apprentices as per the Apprentice Act who are only trained for a specific period to hone their skills and gain experience.
Meanwhile, the BEST deployed extra buses to ferry commuters to and from various points like Dadar, Matunga, Kurla, Sion and other stations.
The protests disrupted the entire suburban and long distance railway schedules in Mumbai, Thane, Palghar, Raigad and Pune with commuters stranded for hours.
College students who started their University of Mumbai’s BA, B.Com and B.Sc. examinations on Tuesday were also affected. The university permitted an hour’s extension for students to reach the exam halls.
The opposition Congress and Nationalist Congress Party have demanded a discussion on the issue in the Maharashtra Legislature on a priority basis.
Mumbai’s famous Dabbawalas were also stranded at various CR stations right from Kalyan in Thane to Dadar in Mumbai.
Meanwhile, Rail Yatri Parishad chief Subhash Gupta attacked the railways for “complete intelligence failure” and for the absence of railway officials.
—IANS
