Tag Archives: Railway Minister

In view of the recent passenger trains derailments, Railways Minister Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu has directed railway administration to launch a massive safety drive across entire Indian Railways network focusing on the strong measures for preventing derailments. Derailment of trains is one of the major causes of railway accidents constituting on an average 50 per cent of the total railway accidents. The fortnight long safety drive is beginning from September 1, 2016. The Minister reviewed the safety measures with the Railway Board. Zonal Railways and Railway Divisions have been directed to gear up their machinery to carry out this drive effectively. Senior officers including Divisional Railway Managers have been asked to be actively associated with the safety drive. Safety drive will be constantly monitored in the railway board by the safety directorate. Suitable follow up action will be taken on all deficiencies and irregularities noticed during the drive. The corrective measures wherever required should immediately be taken to ensure safety in railway operations. The result and report of the drive will also be used for long term measures. It has been reemphasized that safety in railway operations should continue to be the top most priority at all levels.

Railway Minister, Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu, presented the Railway Budget 2016, and announced that in the next three months, Railways will open the e-ticketing facility to foreign debit/credit cards for foreign tourists and NRIs. In order to ensure hassle free travel for passengers bar coded tickets, scanners and access control on a pilot basis on major stations will be introduced to tackle the menace of ticketless travel. While there will be no hike in passenger fare, the budget entailed many new initiatives for the passengers. Prabhu said that Indian Railways intends to commence sale of tickets through hand held terminals for the benefit of the suburban and short distance travellers. IRCTC will also be extending e-catering services from existing 45 large stations to all 408 ‘A-1’ and ‘A’ class stations. It will also explore the possibility of making mandatory catering services optional in trains. Local cuisine of choice will be made available to passengers. Clean my Coach service on pan India basis is introduced, where a passenger can request cleaning of his/her coach/toilets on demand through SMS. The minister has also set a target of 30000 bio-toilets in the next financial year.

Indian Railways will be partnering with the State Governments for operating tourist circuit trains and explore the possibility of a revenue sharing model, announced Railway Minister Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu while presenting the Railway Budget 2016-17. This year, to spread awareness about our national animal, the tiger, Indian Railways will offer complete packages including train journey, safaris and accommodation to cover the wildlife circuit comprising Kanha, Pench and Bandhavgarh. He also proposed to introduce the Antyodaya Express, a long-distance, fully unreserved, superfast train service, for the common man to be operated on dense routes. He also said that two to four Deen Dayalu coaches will be added in some long distance trains for unreserved travel to enhance the carrying capacity. These coaches will also have facility for portable water and a higher number of mobile charging points.