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Suresh Prabhu gives a united challenge to divided railways

Stressing on unity among the departments of the 13.5 lakh employee-strong railways, Prabhu wrote "the responsibility for achieving this target should not rest on one department alone. I expect all departments to contribute their full might towards achieving the target."

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Railway minister Suresh Prabhu has given the railways, often accused of lack of coordination among various departments behaving like silos, a big challenge. In a letter written earlier this week to the members of the Railway Board, Prabhu has asked all departments to work together to increase freight loading by 15 percent for the year 2015-16 (the financial year about to begin from April 1 this year) when compared to the freight loading for the current financial year.

Stressing on unity among the departments of the 13.5 lakh employee-strong railways, Prabhu wrote "the responsibility for achieving this target should not rest on one department alone. I expect all departments to contribute their full might towards achieving the target."

The target is such that officials readily agreed that all departments would require to work together to achieve it. "The economy is just turning around and expecting a gain of 15 percent in freight loading from the previous year is not going to be easy," said a senior railway official.

The numbers so far are encouraging however. The railways, between April 1 and December 31, 2014, carried 808.56 million tonnes of revenue earning freight traffic. This, according to a railway official, is a sizeable 38.82 million tonnes over the freight traffic of 768.74 million tonnes carried during the same period (April to December) in 2013. This in percentage terms, said the official, was an increase of 5.04 percent.

In fact, in December 2014, the rise in freight loading was just 3.58 percent, with railways carrying 95.46 million tonnes against the 92.16 million tonnes it carried in December 2013, a rise of 3.30 million tonnes.

"It just shows that an increase in 15 percent is not going to be a walk in the park but the initiative by the railway minister is a welcome one. The railways will have to shed its silo mentality and work together to bring about a significant discovery," said the official.

The current structure of the railways is such that different streams -- like civil engineering, electrical, mechanical, traffic, staff and finance -- are headed by a member who is of the rank of secretary to the government of India.

"It is often seen that the railway board members act like satraps of their own streams and try to protect their own turf rather than working together for the common good of the railways as a whole," said a former railway board member.


Freight numbers (April-Dec)
2013 - 768.74 million tonnes
2014 - 808.56 million tonnes
5.04 % increase

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