Lalu kickstarts Railways GMs meeting

New Delhi, Nov 14: Railway Minister Lalu Prasad today kickstarted a two-day brainstorming session of the General Managers of Indian Railways to take stock of the proposals announced in this year's Railway Budget, including introduction of new trains, creation of an SPV for dedicated freight corridors, setting up of budget hotels and model stations, as also the loss-making catering services.

Besides Mr Prasad, the annual meeting is being attended by his two deputies Naranbhai J Rathwa and R Velu, all the 17 General Managers, Railway Board Chairman J P Batra and representetaives of associations and federations.

Credited with turning the loss-making transport behemoth into a cash-efficient, passenger-friendly entity, Mr Prasad impressed upon his GMs to chalk out efficient action plans for timely completion of the projects and cushion stiff competition from low budget airlines and freight transport companies.

''It is going to be a brainstorming session for the top Railway mandarins where the entire gamut of existing schemes as well as the proposals in the Railway Budget, 2006-07, will be thorougly debated as a prelude to hammering out measures for their implementation,'' ministry sources told UNI.

More importantly, the meeting would discuss the need to expedite the setting up of a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for the Rs 22,500 crore dedicated freight corridors and also identify the feeder routes for it.

Also on the agenda are the measures that will bolster the revenues of the Railways, the biggest government department in the country.

Addressing the meet, Mr Velu said the Railways, having a surplus fund of Rs 13,000 crore, had set a target of Rs 20,000 crore by the end of the current fiscal.

''We have to augment our earnings by streamlining the freight segment and winning the confidence of travelling passengers through improved safety measures,'' he said.

Faced with a tough competition from the surface transport in freight sector and from low budget airlines in the upscale passenger segment, the Railways has already announced a number of spectacular measures to retrieve the lost ground.

The ministry has already declared the current year as ''The Year of Passenger Service with a Smile''.

In his budget proposals, the Railway Minister had announced introduction of new trains, improving speed of important trains, setting up dedicated freight corridors, budget hotels and transforming 400 stations into ''Model stations''.

While complementing the GMs for bringing down the number of acidents to 232 last year, Mr Velu stressed upon the need to introduce anti-collision device (ACD) and improve safety at unmanned railway crossings.

He, however, regretted that not all the 55 new trains, which were announced in this year's budget, could be put on the track because of shortage of rakes.

''There are areas of strength and there are areas of concern, and these have to be reviewd in all their earnestness,'' he said.

Setting a target of Rs 20,000 crore as fund surplus for the Railways during the current fiscal as against Rs 11,000 crore last year, Mr Prasad is pinning high hopes on the dedicated freight corridor for shoring the revenues. ''Efforts to expedite work on the freight corridor will come up for a discussion. Security measures to strengthen rail security would form part of the agenda,'' the sources said.

Taking a cue from a move to modernise airports in India, the Railway Ministry has already directed its Divisional Managers to select at least five stations each for upgradation.

Mr Batra gave this direction to all 67 Divisional Managers, who met here recently to prepare an action plan for implementation of the Rail Budget propsals.

With the latest directive, at least 400 railway stations would be modernised and equipped by the end of this year with facilities like ATMs, Cyber Cafes, ticket reservation through SMS, better electronic signages and public address systems.

UNI