ProUI

नए रेल मंत्री खड़गे की प्राथमिकता रेलवे बोर्ड में खाली पदों को भरने की होगी। कैबिनेट फेरबदल में रेलवे मंत्रालय मिलने के बाद उन्होंने संवाददाताओं से कहा कि मैं रेलवे बोर्ड में खाली पदों को यथाशीघ्र भरने को प्राथमिकता दूंगा।रेलवे के प्रदर्शन के बारे में पूछने पर उन्होंने कहा कि अब जो भी वक्त बचा है मैं उसमें अपना बेहतरीन प्रयास करूंगा। वर्तमान में सदस्य स्टाफ महेश कुमार जेल में हैं और रेलवे में एक शीर्ष पद को हासिल करने के लिए पूर्व रेल मंत्री पवन कुमार बंसल के भांजे विजय सिंगला को रिश्वत देने के आरोपी हैं ।सदस्य यातायात का पद खाली होने के अलावा रेलवे बोर्ड के अध्यक्ष विनय मित्तल और वित्त आयुक्त विजयकांत 30 जून को सेवानिवत्त हो रहे हैं । रेलवे को इन महत्वपूर्ण पदों पर संभावित नामों का यथाशीघ्र चयन करना होगा और उन्हें डीओपीटी को सौंपना होगा ।

रेलवे जंकशन व टिकट काउंटरों पर बिचौलियों का कब्जा आम बात है. रविवार को एक महिला को कुछ ऐसे ही बिचौलियों का सामना करना पडा. बिचौलियों ने न सिर्फ चार घंटे से टिकट के इंतजार में खडी महिला से बदतमीजी की, बल्कि उसे जबरन लाइन से हटा दिया. इस संबंध में महिला ने नगर थाना में अज्ञात लोगों के खिलाफ प्राथमिकी दर्ज करायी है.जानकारी के अनुसार चंदवारा निवासी सदफ निशात रविवार की सुबह कंपनीबाग स्थित रेलवे टिकट काउंटर पर टिकट के लिए लाइन में खड.ी थी. वह रात्रि 2:30 से ही काउंटर खुलने का इंतजार कर रही थी. सुबह सात बजे टिकट काउंटर खुला. पर उसकेखुलते ही वहां करीब आधा दर्जन बिचौलिये आ धमके.उन्होंने उनसे वहां से हटने को कहा. इसका सदफ निशात ने विरोध किया. इसके बाद बिचौलियों ने उनसे बहस शुरू कर दी व बाद में जबरन लाइन से हटा दिया. महिला ने इसकी सूचना नगर थाना पुलिस को दी. सूचना पाकर पीएसआइ शैलेंद्र कुमार के नेतृत्व में पुलिस मौके पर पहुंची. वहां पुलिस ने मौके से दो बिचौलियों को गिरफ्तार कर लिया, अन्य भागने में सफल रहे. गिरफ्तार दोनों बिचौलियों को आरपीएफ के हवाले कर दिया गया. इधर, पुलिस की कार्रवाई से बिचौलियों में हडकंप मची है.

CHENNAI: More than 10 lakh people use suburban trains in the city every day but Southern Railway does not appear to care about whether they have basic facilities or the trains run on time.Many stations in the city do not have drinking water or proper toilets and trains are usually not cleaned. But Southern Railway's Chennai division has not taken any steps to obtain feedback from commuters. Southern Railway's page on Facebook carries this warning: "This page should not be used as a complaint redressal mechanism." The message sums up its approach to feedback. Suburban and non-express trains are revenue generators, but the ticket-purchasing public do not have say in service quality unlike those who use similar utilities like Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation, which proactively gathers data from passengers. Southern Railway follows an archaic method of gathering inputs from the travelling public: Through rail users' consultative committees at divisional and zonal levels. These committees, which have various representatives, including commuters who are either nominated or elected, meet more as routine and not for serious business. Suburban rail users consultative committees hardly ever hold meetings.

"Complaints presented in the meetings are never resolved," said S Mohanram, a member of divisional rail users' consultative committee. "Railways has asked members of zonal rail users' consultative committees to raise only two points. There are a hundred things to talk about. How do you identify just two issues?"

Most members only discuss problems that affect them personally and not about common problems that commuters face. "Southern Railway has not yet addressed suggestions and complaints discussed more than nine months ago. Officials agree that the suburban train network is not in good shape, but for some reason do not do anything about the issue," Mohanram said.

"Trains and stations are dirty, approach roads to stations are often encroached upon by vendors and people illegally set up parking lots outside," said P Loganathan, a regular commuter. "Things have gone from bad to worse over the past five years."

"We earlier had plans to collect feedback from commuters but they did not take off. Chennai division is too bogged down with operating long distance trains on time from two of its major stations at Egmore and Central. Everything else is put on the back burner," said a senior railways officer.

The railway ministry announced two years ago that it intended to hive off suburban operations so an autonomous body could operate the network, but it has not taken steps to implement the proposal.

M Mallikurjan Kharge was appointed as the new railways minister – the seventh person to take charge of the portfolio in the last four years.Kharge — who headed the labour ministry — has evidently been compensated with the railways portfolio after being denied the chance to become the Karnataka chief minister. “It has been a jinxed period. None of the railways ministers in past four years have been able to focus on the tasks at hand”, a senior ministry official said.The biggest challenge before the new minister will be to set the house in order by undertaking organisational reforms.

Modernisation and infrastructure expansion plans in the railways have been on the back-burner because of the political turmoil in the Rail Bhawan in past years.

In the run-up to the 2014 general elections, Kharge can also be expected to take a call on several pending big-ticket projects including the construction of the Mumbai high speed corridor.

In the past months, the railways have been in the news for all the wrong reasons. Dinesh Trivedi had to step down after he earned his party chief Mamata Banerjee’s wrath for having decided to raise passenger fares.

Even more unceremoniously, Pawan Kumar Bansal had to resign after his nephew Vijay Singla was found to be involved in a cash-for-promotion scandal.

ALLAHABAD: Extending a new facility to the passengers, Indian Railways is now offering passengers to book retiring rooms at the railway station through the IRCTC website.Instead of arranging for accommodation anywhere else, passengers may now book a place in the retiring rooms at the stations through the website.In this connection, Director Traffic Commercial (G) SK Ahirwar in the Railway Board has written letters (dated June 6, 2013) to all zonal railways to begin offering the facility.All zonal railways across the country have been advised to take necessary steps to facilitate booking at railway stations where the retiring rooms exist.Advance booking can be done through internet on a ticket purchased through PRS during the reservation period prescribed for purchase of tickets. The system will validate authenticity of the ticket.Booking of retiring rooms will be permitted only against confirmed/RAC tickets and will not be permitted against wait-listed ticket, card tickets or platform tickets. The customer will have to register on the website for the booking and give PNR number for the transaction to be linked to PRS booking. On one PRS ticket, up to three retiring rooms can be booked. The booking will also be available on arrival at the railway station on PRS/UTS/card ticket.

A genuine passenger holding a general ticket for more than 500 kms will be allowed to avail of the facility at the railway station. Chief commercial managers have been authorised to relax the condition of 500 kms for specific locations based on local conditions.

On cancellation of ticket, the booking of retiring room will be cancelled automatically and will attract cancellation charges of about 10% 48 hours ahead of the day of checking in.

There will be deduction of about 50% if cancellation of the ticket is done within a period of less than 48 hours. But, there will be no refund if cancellation is done on the day of occupation.

Booking will be permitted for a period of 12 hours or 24 hours as per the need and in any case for not more than a period of 48 hours. Check in and check-out time should be between 8 am and 8 pm.

Passenger booking the retiring room needs to carry one of the approved five photo ID cards, namely Voter Identity Card, Passport, PAN Card, driving License, photo identity card issued by Central/state government, student identity card with photograph issued by recognised school/college for students, passbook of a nationalised bank along with photograph and credit card by banks with laminated photographs.

Passengers who boarded The Nilgiris Mountain Railway (NMR) at Mettupalayam on Sunday morning reached Coonoor Railway Station after a three-hour delay.According to railway sources, the fall of a boulder on a stretch of the railway track near the Hill Grove Railway Station and the consequent damage to the track forced the loco pilot to stop the vehicle at the station.The train left the Mettupalayam Railway Station around 7.30 a.m. to reach the Hill Grove station around 8.45 a.m.The train remained there for two hours after the department staff alerted the authorities concerned that the track at the stretch, which included a bridge, was damaged.The damaged portion measured around four feet, the sources said

CHENNAI: More than 10 lakh people use suburban trains in the city every day but Southern Railway does not appear to care about whether they have basic facilities or the trains run on time.Many stations in the city do not have drinking water or proper toilets and trains are usually not cleaned. But Southern Railway's Chennai division has not taken any steps to obtain feedback from commuters. Southern Railway's page on Facebook carries this warning: "This page should not be used as a complaint redressal mechanism." The message sums up its approach to feedback. Suburban and non-express trains are revenue generators, but the ticket-purchasing public do not have say in service quality unlike those who use similar utilities like Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation, which proactively gathers data from passengers. Southern Railway follows an archaic method of gathering inputs from the travelling public: Through rail users' consultative committees at divisional and zonal levels. These committees, which have various representatives, including commuters who are either nominated or elected, meet more as routine and not for serious business. Suburban rail users consultative committees hardly ever hold meetings.

"Complaints presented in the meetings are never resolved," said S Mohanram, a member of divisional rail users' consultative committee. "Railways has asked members of zonal rail users' consultative committees to raise only two points. There are a hundred things to talk about. How do you identify just two issues?"

Most members only discuss problems that affect them personally and not about common problems that commuters face. "Southern Railway has not yet addressed suggestions and complaints discussed more than nine months ago. Officials agree that the suburban train network is not in good shape, but for some reason do not do anything about the issue," Mohanram said.

"Trains and stations are dirty, approach roads to stations are often encroached upon by vendors and people illegally set up parking lots outside," said P Loganathan, a regular commuter. "Things have gone from bad to worse over the past five years."

"We earlier had plans to collect feedback from commuters but they did not take off. Chennai division is too bogged down with operating long distance trains on time from two of its major stations at Egmore and Central. Everything else is put on the back burner," said a senior railways officer.

The railway ministry announced two years ago that it intended to hive off suburban operations so an autonomous body could operate the network, but it has not taken steps to implement the proposal.

Passengers who boarded The Nilgiris Mountain Railway (NMR) at Mettupalayam on Sunday morning reached Coonoor Railway Station after a three-hour delay.According to railway sources, the fall of a boulder on a stretch of the railway track near the Hill Grove Railway Station and the consequent damage to the track forced the loco pilot to stop the vehicle at the station.The train left the Mettupalayam Railway Station around 7.30 a.m. to reach the Hill Grove station around 8.45 a.m.The train remained there for two hours after the department staff alerted the authorities concerned that the track at the stretch, which included a bridge, was damaged.The damaged portion measured around four feet, the sources said

The news of auctioning the historic Sir Arthur Elibank Havelock Bridge across the Godavari shortly by the Railway Board came as a rude shock to the people of Rajahmundry as well as East and West Godavari district.In a recent meeting, the General Manager of South Central Railway informed the local MLA that the Railway Board had taken a decision to auction the Bridge as scrap.Immediately, the MLA appealed to Rajahmundry MP Vundavalli Arun Kumar to keep the decision of the Railway Board in abeyance and then represent it to Union Railway Minister and State Minister.The issue, which has been hanging fire for long, has come to the fore again, when Union Minister of State for Railways Kotla Suryaprakash Reddy came to Rajahmundry in the month of December, 2012.After serving the Indian Railways for over a century, the Havelock Bridge was abandoned.After the news was broke out, historians, academicians, intellectuals, elite and non-government organisations along with political parties decided to take up agitations to protect the historical monument.

LUDHIANA: With the exit of former railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal and their hopes shattering, Ludhianvis are now pinning hopes upon the newly appointed railway minister MallikarjunKharge to improve the railway connectivity to this one of the main industrial cities of north India. The beginning of Jan Shatabdi tops the list of the residents' demands as they suffer due to no bullet train from the city to Delhi after 8am. Even information and broadcasting minister Manish Tewari, who is an MP from the city, had many a times acknowledged that the demand of the residents for Jan Shatabdi is pending with him. An industrialist from Rishi Nagar Tushar Chawla says, "The city badly needs a good train, that is, Jan Shatabdi. The city has no train after 8am till evening. It is important for the industrial development of the city. We were expecting Pawan Kumar Bansal to begin it but then he had to resign." "Now that a new railway minister has been sworn in, we hope he fulfills this demand of the residents of one of the biggest industrial cities of north India," he adds. Another industrialist from Fateh Singh Nagar Rajesh Kalra says, "Jan Shatabdi should be started soon as it will give a boost to the industries in the city. At the same time, the railway station badly needs a revamp. There is no AC waiting room at the station and even the non-AC waiting room has inadequate sitting facilities. Apart from that, the building of the railway station is also old and needs repairing. We request the new railway minister to consider our demands seriously and fulfill these at an earliest as our business is connected with the railway network."

In the meanwhile, the information and broadcasting minister said, "The beginning of Jan Shatabdi and improving facilities at the railway station are important for the city and are on my priority list. Once the new railway minister settles down, I will discuss these with him."

Ashwin Nagpal, businessman of Civil Lines, says: "The city needs a Jan Shatabdi. One more option is to add the number of higher executive class bogeys if it is possible, especially in the express trains. So far as the upgradation of the railway station is concerned, the upkeep of the station is important before upgrading the infrastructure. Dr Gurpreet Singh, resident of Pakhowal road, says: "Apart from starting good trains from the city, the modernization of the railway station is important as it is one of the main railway stations of north India. Safai karamcharis should be deployed at the station in adequate numbers to maintain hygiene. Upkar Singh, joint secretary, Chamber of Industrial & Commercial Understandings, says "Besides our demand of a Jan Shatabdi, we also want facilities like visitors lounge, additional platforms, proper food joints, elevators especially for elderly persons. We also want the authorities to repair the overbridges which are in bad shape."