Railways vow 100% electrification of its broad gauge in 5 years

Indian Railways have prepared an action plan for 100% electrification of its Broad Gauge (BG) rail routes, thereby, electrifying 38,000 route kilometers in five years (2017-18 to 2021-22).

Giving this information in the Rajya Sabha yesterday, in a written reply, Minister of State for Railways Rajen Gohain said the Railways has planned to adopt Engineering, Procurement & Construction (EPC) tendering system having structure of incentive and penalty for expeditious execution of Railway Electrification projects.

It is expected to achieve recurring saving of Rs 13,510 crore per annum at current price after switch over of all trains from diesel traction to electric traction.

Crack down on long term absentee staff 

Railways has also launched a massive drive to identify long term absentees in various establishments. As a result of the drive, Railways have detected more than 13,000 employees out of about 13 lakhs employees who are on unauthorised absence for a long time. The establishment has initiated disciplinary action under the rules to terminate services of such absentees.

Railways has instructed all the officers and supervisors to weed out these employees from the employees’ rolls after following due process.

Passenger can send SMS for cleaning requirement in coach

‘Clean My Coach’ scheme, for any cleaning requirement in the coach, passenger can send a message through mobile (SMS) on a specified mobile number. Alternatively, passenger can also use an android app or webpage for logging the request. 

‘Clean My Coach’ service is now being upgraded to ‘Coach Mitra’ facility which is a single window interface to register coach related requirements of passengers such as cleaning, disinfection, linen, train lighting, air conditioning and watering of coaches.

‘Coach Mitra’ facility has been introduced in about 800 pairs of trains.

More than 71,000 service requests were received from April, 2017 to December, 2017. Nearly 90% of those service requests were attended.

Posters/stickers are displayed inside the coach near main gate/doorway to make the passengers aware about the facility.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Railways Rajen Gohain in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha yesterday.