The time is opportune for doing away with the practice of a separate rail budget, and for replacing the railway ministry with an umbrella ministry of transport.
In a move to deepen manufacturing in electronics in India, the Centre is targeting 35-40 per cent value-addition through the yet-to-be launched production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for electronics components, sources in the government
However, it will run special trains for migrants and others stranded across the country due to the ongoing lockdown.
Railway stations -- Beas, Vishakhapatnam, Khammam, Secunderabad, Ahmednagar and Jammu Tawi are the top ranked railway stations by cleanliness.
'With the deployment of a higher degree of mechanisation, awarding contractual mining to MDOs and operational efficiency, we feel confident of achieving the desired target.'
The ministry of information and broadcasting is working on a proposal to set up a mega movie production studio -- akin to those in Hollywood -- with an investment of Rs 10,000 crore (Rs 100 billion), which will be supported by the government.
The notification of the Act comes just a day after Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan was asked when the legislation would be implemented. The minister had said the law ministry was framing the rules.
'The BJP's numbers in this government are almost the same as those enjoyed by the Congress under P V Narasimha Rao when the reform process was kicked off in 1991.' 'As before, the only constraints on the prime minister's actions are internal, not external.' 'They come from his own assessment of the political consequences of any action,' points out Mihir S Sharma.
While the corporate sector has benefited from massive capital expenditure, leading to sky-rocketing stock prices, investors would do well to keep an eye on the macroeconomic picture and government finances, not just corporate profits, for signs of trouble, alerts Debashis Basu.
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Wednesday urged job aspirants not to destroy public property and assured them that their grievances would be resolved as candidates went on a rampage over alleged irregularities in a recruitment exam by the public transporter.
According to an official statement, in a letter to Goyal, Pawar said that the migrant workers, stranded in different parts of Maharashtra, may step out in big numbers to return to their states when the train services resume after the lockdown is lifted. This can lead to law and order problem (with workers coming out in big numbers), he added. To avoid this, the railway ministry should run special trains, he demanded.
Ranajit Giri, Biprada Bag, Asha Behera and Ashok Bera, all residents of Bahanaga Bazaar station area in Balasore district where the crash took place, were among the first to rescue the injured.
After Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement of a 21-day lockdown across the country, Indian Railways on Tuesday said that its suspension of all passenger services will continue till April 14. However, freight movement will continue to carry essential commodities across the country, officials said.
The suspended WFI, despite being warned of legal action by the Sports Ministry for organising the 'nationals', went ahead with the tournament in Pune from January 29-31.
The Railway Minister has announced that there is an urgency to attract FDI in Railway projects.
Suresh Prabhu, the new railways minister, not only needs to save the railways from the clutches of bureaucracy and politics but also attract foreign investment to revive the once potent force.
Railway spokesperson Rajesh Dutt Bajpai on Tuesday said, "Consent of terminating state not necessary to run Shramik Special trains". He further said, "After the new SoP, the implication is that no consent of the receiving state is mandatory".
Signalling both change and continuity, India's new government, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a third consecutive term, got into work gear on Tuesday with cabinet ministers and ministers of state filing into their respective offices to assume charge.
The Centre has taken a major step towards increasing efficiency in decision-making by empowering joint secretaries to report to secretaries directly, officials said on Wednesday.
Railways has said that it plans to suspend two senior officials of Northern Railway, following searches carried out by the Central Bureau of Investigation at 13 locations and recovery of Rs 20 crore in cash in connection with alleged corruption in supply of packaged drinking water in premium trains.
Three trains jumped off the tracks and another derailment was averted on Thursday in Uttar Pradesh, New Delhi and Maharashtra within a span of nine hours.
The Railway Ministry is considering a hike in passenger fares in the Railway Budget 2014-15 slated to be presented by Railway Minister Sadananda Gowda in the second week of next month.
Indian Railways last month issued an order to end the British-era practice of using Dak Messengers, or personal messengers, for official communications and move towards video conferencing in a bid to save costs.
Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) and Bharat Heavy Electricals (BHEL) are in talks for a partnership to run private trains. According to officials in the know, the two public sector undertakings (PSUs) are planning to form a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to run passenger trains on routes for which IRCTC has put in bids. "BHEL will be putting in the money required for private rail service, while IRCTC is going to focus on operational requirements," an official said. "IRCTC's business model has not been capital expenditure-focussed. It has built only operational enhancements," he added. Bids for public private partnerships (PPPs) in passenger train operations were opened last month.
Balasore district hospital looked like a war zone with the injured lying on stretchers in the corridor and rooms bursting at its seams with extra beds propped up.
There was a plan to increase the Railways' revenue by augmenting carrying capacity. This target has, however, become the source of a bitter battle between two ministries - the railways and steel - and provoked serious arguments over the "Make in India" programme.
'There are enough funds to solve this problem.'
In the suburban section, the number of passengers booked during this period were 3,022 million as compared to 3,028.44 million in the same period last year, a decrease of 0.20 per cent while in the non-surban sector, 2,559.08 million passengers were booked as against 2,634.10 million in the corresponding period last year, registering a decrease of 2.55 per cent.
The train crash happened near the Bahanaga Baazar station in Balasore district, about 250 km south of Kolkata and 170 km north of Bhubaneswar, around 7 pm on Friday, prompting the Railway Ministry to order a probe.
The report said people with heavy luggage lost their balance because of which the stampede may have occurred.
The change in leadership at the railway ministry comes at a time when the national transporter is grappling with low passenger earnings even as it is trying to increase freight loading and open up its doors to private investment. Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw took charge from Piyush Goyal who got the railway portfolio in 2017 after Prime Minister Narendra Modii dropped Suresh Prabhu from the Union Cabinet. Completing freight corridors, negotiating land for the bullet train, and speeding up monetisation plans would be some of the major focus areas for Vaishnaw.
Railways have suspended two senior officials following searches carried out by CBI and recovery of Rs 20 crore in cash in connection with alleged corruption in supply of packaged drinking water in premium trains.
A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde was informed by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, that a final decision would be taken in consultation with the Railways, Delhi Government and the Urban Development Ministry.
To boost domestic manufacturing under the Make in India initiative and reduce dependency on imports, the government is expected to announce in the Budget an increase in the minimum local content requirement for public procurement, with certain sectors being granted exceptions. Currently, firms producing goods, services, or works with at least 50 per cent local content are classified as Class-I local suppliers and are preferred the most in government procurement.
The ministry cancelled the caterer's contract following tweets surfaced of the incident.
As many as 12,394 complaints of alleged corruption were received against railway employees.
Freight earnings accounted for 65 per cent of IR's total earnings of Rs 144,167 crore (Rs 1,441.67 billion) in 2013-14.
The second wave of the coronavirus has put huge pressure on the country's health system, with hospitals facing shortage of oxygen, medicines and equipment to treat COVID-19 patients, besides beds.
At least nine passengers were reported dead on May 27 over a span of 48 hours on board the migrant trains, with the railways stating that all of them had health conditions.
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