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.
Road awards were muted in Q1FY25. But the pace will accelerate with a bidding pipeline of Rs 1.1 trillion (September 2024), mostly dominated by HAM (Hybrid Annuity Model) projects, which contribute 47 per cent and engineering procurement and construction or EPC projects, which have about 36 per cent share. Hence, infrastructure companies mostly reported revenue decline on a year-on-year (Y-o-Y) basis in Q1FY25.
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.
'The government must understand that the Indian Railways is like a Kamdhenu cow. It can look after your GDP, it can look after the health of the nation. But the Kamdhenu cow also needs nourishment.' 'You have not at all looked after the Indian Railways, you have ill treated the Indian Railways, you have mistreated the Indian Railways and you have given the Indian Railways step motherly treatment.' 'I don't think this government has understood the Indian Railways.'
'The local support from our MP is nil. He never comes to see our farms.'
The Union Ministry of Railways runs a canteen inside Parliament, and provides subsidised food items for elected representatives.
Concerned over the fallout of the Red Sea crisis and severe shortage of containers against the backdrop of a steep decline in merchandise exports in August, the Union government is pulling out all the stops to find a solution. To begin with, the government has devised a strategy aimed at boosting container supply and supporting exporters.
The only time in recent history when the railways undertook such a move was in 2016-17 when four officers were prematurely retired.
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.
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.
Dearness Allowance for central government employees has been hiked to 31 per cent of the basic pay from 28 per cent with effect from July 1, 2021, the Finance Ministry said. In an office memorandum, the Department of Expenditure, under the Finance Ministry, said the term 'basic pay' means the pay drawn as per the 7th pay commission matrix and does not include any other type of pay like special pay, etc. "....the Dearness Allowance payable to central government employees shall be enhanced from the existing rate of 28 per cent to 31 per cent of the basic pay with effect from July 1, 2021," said the office memorandum dated October 25.
Shah said the Modi government has given highest priority to peace and development in the Northeastern region.
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
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 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.
A railway ministry official told Business Standard that the major part of this would go into expanding ticketing facilities, with the aim of taking it to the passenger's doorstep.
The estimated cost of the project is around Rs 1,642 crore.
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.
While the SECR has cancelled 22 mail or express trains and 12 passenger trains, the Northern Railways has cancelled four mail or express trains, and as many passenger services.
'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.
The Bharatiya Janata Party said on Monday the railways has subsidised 85 per cent of ticket fare for special trains being run to transport migrant workers and the state government has to pay the remaining 15 per cent, soon after the Congress attacked the central government over the issue.
'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.
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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.
Ferrying migrant workers back to their states would be the largest special service by any railway network in the world in one go. Here's how the transporter manages it.
Thousands of migrants were stranded in places across the country since the lockdown was enforced on March 25, many even attempting to walk home.
Sources said the railways is keen to ensure that a purely domestic entity bags the tender and once it was felt that the Chinese JV was a frontrunner for the project, it was scrapped.
A change in electrification criterion in April 2017, with retrospective effect, helped the government add "already electrified 3,090 rkm" to its credit.
Railways has made windfall gains with the introduction of dynamic fares in the special Rajdhani type trains in the Delhi-Mumbai sector, which saw up to a 30 per cent jump in fares in AC-2 and 35 per cent in AC-3.
There will be four trips from December 24, 2013 till Januray 2, 2014 of the premium AC special trains on the busy New Delhi-Mumbai sector, said a senior Railway Ministry official, adding 'the tickets will be sold on higher rate than the existing rate as per the dynamic pricing policy.'
'No linen, blankets and curtains shall be provided inside the train. Passengers are advised to carry their own linen,' an order by the Railways said. The order also said that there would be no provision of 'tatkal' and 'premium tatkal' accommodation and there will be very few stoppages during the journey.
Modi, sources said, noted that some opposition members had described the voting in Rajya Sabha as a semi-final before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls as he exuded confidence about the BJP's prospects in the national elections.
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Railway Board Chairman Arunendra Kumar said the discussions at the day-long meet involved an overview of five models of participative policy, framework of engineering, procurement and construction contracts and sectoral guidelines for foreign and domestic investment.
Railway hospitals will offer postgraduate courses for medical students.
In a letter to all the zonal general managers on Monday, the board has said that initially 5,000 coaches will be converted.
PSUs under the railways ministry include Ircon International, a turnkey infrastructure construction company; Railtel (telecom); Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Company; and Rites, a consultancy, engineering and project management firm.
The sector is witnessing weak tendering.
