Railways Ministry workshop discusses ‘ Mission Raftaar’

Speed Post News Network

New Delhi : Railways Ministry conducted a day long workshop “Mission Raftaar” aimed at raising the average speed of freight trains and coaching trains in New Delhi o May 30, 2018.  The workshop was inaugurated by Rajen Gohain, Minister of State for Railways, and Ashwani Lohani, Chairman, Railway Board. All the members of Railway Board along with General Managers of Zonal Railways and Senior Railway officers were present on the occasion.

On this occasion, Railways Minister Piyush Goyal said, “This workshop is an exercise with the top management of Indian Railways to brainstorm about the increase in speed of freight and passenger trains. Also, host of issues ranging from punctuality, rolling stock, removing bottlenecks in terms of traffic, elimination of Unmanned Level crossings were discussed. Indian Railways is enthusiastically taking up all the issues with the determination to find the solution in a time bound manner.”

Goyal also stated that coal loading was highest i.e. 555 MT in 2017-18. In last three months, 18.7%  increase has been witnessed in coal loading. Ministry of Railways & Coal is coordinating well so as to ensure there is no shortage of coal in power plants. He added that demand for coal has also witnessed an increase due to less imports. He complimented Coal India Limited for increasing supply of coal in last three months, according to a PIB release.

In his inaugural address, Minister of  State for Railways Rajen Gohain said, “ Indian Railways has been emphasizing on capacity building and lot of work has been done, now the time has come to address the bottlenecks so the speeds of trains can be increased. Railway officials have the best expertise to come up with solutions to implement Mission Raftar.”

Chairman, Railway Board, Ashwani Lohani, in his inaugural remarks, said, “This workshop aims to address the futuristic needs of Indian Railways. Indian Railways have been prioritising safety of its passengers and  have achieved the best figures in safety record. It is the time to ponder over the challenges which have been a constraint in providing speed to the trains, also a strategy needs to be devised and implemented.”

Mission Raftar : It aims at doubling the average speed of freight trains and increasing average speed of coaching trains by 25 kmph over a five year period. Increasing average speed of trains is considered essential for reducing the travel time for passengers, transit time for cargo, operational cost, improving revenues and railway’s market share. This is part of the strategy to keep pace with the growing competition from the competing modes viz. road and airlines etc.