Transforming Indian Railways? Minister spells out 5-point strategy

The Minister of Railways Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu while presenting the Railway Budget 2015-16 in Parliament on Thursday has said that the goals of transforming Indian Railways will be achieved with a five point execution strategy. These are:

• Adopting a medium-term perspective: Budget proposals to mark beginning of a Five Year Action Plan to transform the Railways.

• Building Partnerships: This will require partnering with key stakeholders: States, PSU’s, partner with multilateral and bi-lateral organizations & other governments to gain access to long term financing and technology from overseas, the private sector to improve last mile connectivity, expand fleet of rolling stock and modernize our station infrastructure.
  
  
• Leveraging additional resources: Indian Railways envisages investment of Rs. 8.5 lakh crore (Rs 8.5 trillion) in next five years to be mobilized from multiple sources to cater to funding i.e multilateral development banks, pension funds.
  
  
• Revamping management practices, systems, processes, and re-tooling of human resources: Targeted operating ratio for 2015-16 at 88.5% against 91.8%in 2014-15: best in the last 9 years; Indian Railways to speed up decision making, tighten accountability, improve management information systems: training and development of human resource.
  
  
• To set standards for Governance and Transparency

Text: Kind courtesy, PIB

Image: Passengers travel on an overcrowded train. Photograph: Anindito Mukherjee/Reuters