North Eastern Railway, primarily being a passenger-oriented system, has positioned itself as one of the prominent zones in providing safe, secure, faster, comfortable and reliable transportation facility to the public during 2021.

1. Infrastructure Developments: During 2021, the following new projects have been commissioned:

• Gauge Conversion of 47km:  Shahjahanpur – Shahbaznagar (4km) and Mailani – Shahgarh (43 Kms).
• Doubling and Electrification of 101 km :
  • Aunrihar-Ghazipur City (40 Kms)
  • Sitapur-Parsendi (16.8 kms)
  • Madhosingh-Gyanpur Road ( 14.6 kms)
  • Ballia-Phaphna (10.5 kms)
  •  Aunrihar-Dhobhi (20 kms).
• Electrification of 406 km. 
• Coach maintenance facilities have been set up at Ballia and Ghazipur.
• 06 ROB have been completed.

2. Passenger Amenities:

• 24 Escalators have been provided at 10 different stations.
• 22 Lifts have been provided at 8 different stations.
• 47 Railway stations have been developed in to Adarsh stations.
• Wifi provided in all the 295 eligible stations.

3. Safety:

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  • Many safety measures have been undertaken to minimize untoward incidents with special emphasis on failure investigations and various remedial measures are adopted to prevent such occurrences.
  • 75 Level Crossings have been eliminated by the provision of RUB/LHS/ ROB and diversions.
  • All level crossing gates having total vehicle units (TVU) more than fifty thousands have been interlocked. Besides this, in 2021 16 Level Crossing gates with TVU less than 50,000 have also been interlocked
  • 78 km of track renewal was done. Besides this, deep screening of 192 km of plain track and 145 turnouts was accomplished.

4. Loading:

• The cumulative loading upto date is around 60% more as compared to corresponding period of last year.
• To increase loading various steps have been taken such as 26 major goods sheds have been made operational for round the clock working, average speed of goods trains has been increased and maintained above 50 km/ph. consistently for the year.
• With the concerted efforts of Business Development Units (BDU) at Zonal and Divisional levels 22 rakes of Kisan Rail have been loaded and run from Farrukhabad railway station of Izzatnagar division to North East Frontier Railway.
• NER has started a comparatively new stream of traffic last year- loading of automobiles. This year 41% more loading was done with 113 rakes of automobiles loaded from Haldi Road.
• Two major automobile handling terminals have been developed, one is at Bakshi Ka Talab and the other is at Nautanwa which is also fulfilling the transportation needs of neighbouring country Nepal. 77 rakes were unloaded at these stations.
• To facilitate the automobile loading 550 condemned ICF coaches were converted in NMG wagons in workshops of Gorakhpur and Izzatnagar. This is the largest conversion done on Indian Railways in a year.

5. Expenditure Control:

• To reduce costs, the station cleaning, on board housekeeping services (OBHS) and mechanised cleaning have been contracted out through GEM. Total 10 contracts have been finalised which has resulted in to saving of more than 40%. 
• Railwaymen have been trained and skilled up suitably to undertake various maintenance works which were otherwise done through annual maintenance contracts (AMCs) resulting in saving of railway revenue.
• Zonal and all divisional railway hospitals have been equipped with the facility of oxygen plants which has resulted into saving of about 70% of medical oxygen expenditure.
• Total saving of 20cr is expected from these reforms.

6. Energy Conservation:

• More than 75% of NER routes have been electrified and would become almost 100% electrified railway by the end of the year 2022. 
• After electrification of main routes the expenditure on high speed diesel (HSD) has been considerably reduced registering a saving of Rs. 361 Crores.
• CUF (Capacity Utilization Factor) based solar monitoring system has been implemented which has resulted in 26% higher solar energy generation in this year as compared to corresponding period of last year with the same installed capacity of 4.72 MWp.
• Total 31pair trains which originate/terminate on North Eastern Railway are running on HOG system.
• NER won first prize in transportation category under the prestigious National Energy Conservation Awards - 2021.
• Under UP NEDA awards- 2021, Gorakhpur station won first prize under commercial building category, Gonda station won second prize under government building category, Izzatnagar workshop won second prize in Industrial category and DRM office, N.E.Railway, Lucknow won third prize in government building category.
• Water recycling plants have been commissioned at 04 stations   with a capacity of 700KLD a day.

7. Customer Satisfaction:

• Through constant monitoring and proactive action, Rail Madad disposal time has been reduced to 13 minutes in comparison to 3 hours 6 minutes in the last year. This is the fastest disposal time on India Railways.
• It is significant that even after reducing the disposal time, quality of corrective action was not compromised. The average customer rating is excellent.
• NER has the highest score in the Rail Madad metrics of Railway Board.
• Complaints received on CP GRAMS are also being dealt in a similar manner and the disposal time has been reduced to one day in comparison to 11 days in last year. It is the fastest disposal time on Indian Railways.

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RKJ/M