2 yrs in office, Rly schemes gather steam

Launching some major initiatives that may provide relief to millions of rail passengers, Prabhu on Monday launched hand-held terminals for the benefit of suburban and short distance commuters and field trials of warning system for road users as well as train drivers at level crossings in Mumbai. 

Also, the railways on Monday extended alternative train accommodation system for five major routes, connecting Howrah, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and Secunderabad from the national Capital and new lightweight toolkit for railway trackmen.

The unreserved ticketing system serves nearly two crore passengers daily through nearly 12,300 counters at 5,864 locations and generating approximately Rs 59 crore of revenue per day for railways.

We are now providing hand-held terminals (HHT) for unreserved tickets, Prabhu said as he launched the scheme through video-conferencing. The HHT was launched at Nizamuddin station as a pilot project.

While launching the field trials of safety-related initiatives, Prabhu said the number of accidents has reduced. However, he underlined the ministry’s aim to achieve zero accident at level crossing.

Accidents at unmanned level crossings is a major concern as the maximum number of mishaps take place at these crossings across the country.

Prabhu said railways was seeking a separate fund for carrying out safety-related projects to check accidents. “We have written to the Finance Minister, seeking Rs 1 lakh crore as safety fund to prevent accidents at unmanned level crossings”, Prabhu said.

On lightweight toolkit for railway trackmen, Prabhu said, “We have always maintained that those who work round-the-clock for railways in difficult conditions, we have to improve facilities for them.”

The trackmen are generally assigned to maintain the track for up to 6-8 km section on a daily basis. The track maintainers carry tools to site of work. Each track maintainer carries at least five tools, which weigh around 26 kg. 

The Railways has redesigned these tools with improved metallurgy and better design. Hence, the total weight of equipment carried by trackmen now is 16 kg.