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Share26. For monitoring these various initiatives, the Additional General Managers on each zonal Railway will be responsible for periodic supervision and carrying out surprise inspections and attending to public grievances on this subject. Each Division will have a dedicated officer for field level supervision.
Safety
27. Safety is our first priority. This includes timely track renewal, modernization of signals, use of various safety equipment like digital ultrasonic flaw detecting machines and wheel impact load detectors (WILD). In the first two years of the plan period, 7843 kms of track renewals has been completed and a target of 3500 km has been kept for 2009-10. Out of 66,565 km of broad gauge track, 57,345 km has been brought under mechanized maintenance.
28. Road Over Bridges and Road Under Bridges are extremely important from safety point of view. The present mechanism of cost sharing between the Railways and the state governments needs to be reviewed. The time has come to develop a new approach where, with assured funding, turnkey execution of these projects can be done. We will take up this issue with the Planning Commission for their support.
29. Anti Collision Device (ACD) to prevent incidents of train collisions has been made operational on 1736 RKm of North Frontier Railway. Further work for extending this system on 1700 RKm on three railways Southern, South Central and South Western Railways is planned to be completed in two years. I will review the implementation of the project before further extension to other Railways.
30. All safety related matters will be taken care of by Railway Board who will take responsibility and effective measures to ensure safety.
Security
31. Security is another priority area of railways. Railways are strengthening their efforts at providing protection to passengers both at stations and on trains. For revamping security systems, an Integrated Security Scheme has been drawn up for 140 vulnerable and sensitive railway stations. We are also planning to raise Commando Battalions and will increase the number of women commandos. Women RPF squads are being deployed for security of women passengers, particularly in sections where a large number of women travel alone regularly. Madam, even though Law and order is a state subject, we will work together with all agencies concerned to give passengers a safe
journey.
Staff Welfare
32. We are proud of our 14 lakh employees. They are the leader and our engine of growth
• A thrust will be given under the Corporate Welfare Plan for improvement of staff quarters & colonies. During 2009-10, 6560 staff quarters are proposed to be constructed.
• To promote sports, cultural and extra-curricular activities, indoor stadia will be developed in major railway divisions and zones including Bongaon at the Indo- Bangladesh border.
• I propose to increase the contribution to Staff Benefit Fund to Rs350/- per employee by one year with the proviso that out of this contribution, the sum of Rs 100 per employee will be exclusively for activities relating to women empowerment and training for developing vocational and occupational skills of physically and mentally challenged wards of railway employees especially girl child and higher education for girls.
• I propose to set up Scholarships for higher education of girl children of group D staff for promoting their economic independence.
• It is proposed to open seven Nursing Colleges on Railway land at Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai (Kalyan), Chennai, Secunderabad, Lucknow and Jabalpur on Public Private Partnership model so as to facilitate the wards of the Railway employees in finding a good vocational avenue.
• Medical colleges are planned to be established attached to existing railway hospitals through PPP, to give higher education facilities to new generation of railway children. The locations would be Chennai, Hyderabad, Bilaspur, Lucknow, Barasat, Bhubaneswar, Mysore, Kharagpur, Guwahati, Dibrugarh, Jodhpur, Gardenreach, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, B. R. Singh Hospital, Bhopal, Jammu and Trivandrum.
• We will provide dormitories for ladies and gents who accompany the patients at 16 hospitals having 150 beds and above.
• For special medical treatment of railway persons, General Managers will be empowered to sanction cases up to Rs 4 lakhs.
• The Metro Railway Hospital at Tollygunge is proposed to be upgraded to 75 bedded hospital.
• Burn Units will be provided on major Railway Hospitals of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Secunderabad, Bangalore and /B.R. Singh Hospital.
• I have received some observations from different people about the functioning of Railway Recruitment Boards. Therefore recruitment policy and RRBs will be reviewed shortly.
• Special Recruitment Drive will be launched to wipe out backlog in filling up the vacancies of Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribes.
• It is proposed to develop a scheme to give better representation to minorities, women and economically back ward classes of the society in railway recruitments.
• A Special Recruitment Drive will be launched for filling up of vacancies against Physically Handicapped Quota.
