"History will remember Indian Railways for its immense contribution to the fight against Covid. While maintaining national supply chains, it has ensured that wheels of progress  keep moving at fast pace" said while Shri Piyush Goyal reviewing the operational performance of Zones & Divisions with top Railway officials today.

Shri Goyal said that during the last 14 months Railways has demonstrated a high moral strength and ability to rise to the occasion.

Shri Goyal directed the officials to go aggressively for full utilisation of record Capex allocation. Completion of infrastructure works would generate employment as well especially in challenging Covid times.

The Minister said that Nation is full of gratitude for all of those Railways employees who lost their lives while serving the Nation and offered condolences.

Shri Goyal observed that Indian Railways is transforming itself from just being a mode of transportation to an all a great engine for growth and that every one is committed to the success of IR and making Railways a self sustainable organization.

Shri Goyal said that Oxygen Expresses have served the Nation in an extra ordinary manner and were game changer in the fight against Covid.He said that speed of response andquality of service has been appreciated by all. Front line staff has risen to occasion.

Shri Goyal said that Railways need to further enhance manpower efficiency in operations and there was a lot of scope of improvement in workshops as far as that is concerned.

Shri Goyal directed all the officials to go aggressively for full utilisation of record Capex allocation. Completion of infrastructure works would generate employment as well especially in challenging covid times.

Shri Goyal said that Covid challenges have demonstrated the resolve of Railways to fight back and emerge stronger. Mindset of Railways has transformed. It’s no longer business as usual for Railways.

The Minister complimented Railway officials for showing an extra ordinary resilience and ensuring that Indian Railways achieved a DOUBLE DIGIT growth in Freight Traffic.

Railways has recorded more than 10% increase in Freight loading as compared to normal year of 2019-20. In FY 2021-22, Indian Railways total loading is 203.88 Million Tonnes (MT) which is 10% more than FY 2019-20 loading figures (184.88 MT) for the same period.

The Minister complimented the officials of the Business Development Units for working on Mission Mode to boost the Freight traffic. He further directed that more efforts be made for developing infrastructure like good sheds, terminals, last mile electrification towards sheds, mechanisation of loading unloading etc to make things more efficient and easy for all operators.

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DJN/MKV