Indian Railways took several measures for developing infrastructure during the last four years to boost development of rail transport. In this connection, two flagship programmes were introduced. One was a non-lapsable Special Railways Safety Fund of Rs. 17,000 crore created in 2001-2002 to wipe out aged assets of railways over a period of five years with a contribution of Rs. 12,000 crore from General Exchequer and Rs. 5,000 crore from Safety Surcharge. The other was the National Rail Vikas Yojana (NRVY), largely a non-budgetary investment initiative, as announced by the Prime Minister, with a corpus of Rs. 15,000 crore. NRVY includes three initiatives — strengthening of Golden Quadrilateral, strengthening of Port and Hinterland Connectivity and construction of four mega bridges. To oversee implementation of NRVY, a public sector company Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd. (RVNL) has been set up. RVNL would also mobilise resources through public-private partnership, participation from stakeholders, domestic market, multi-lateral and bi-lateral fundings.

Other important initiatives, during the period, include a number of public-private partnerships that Indian Railways have entered by way of equity participation in Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) on cost sharing of the projects. Some of the initiatives taken in this regard to augment rail infrastructure are: cost sharing of suburban projects by the governments of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Begal, Andhra Pradesh; participation through SPV route by the governments of Karnataka and Maharashtra; cost sharing in non-suburban projects by the governments of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Jharkhand; private participation through SPV in Pipavav Rail Corporation Limited; and private railway system for providing rail connectivity to Mundhra Port. Some other programmes include Mumbai Urban Transport Project and Multi-Modal Transport System.

A total of 591 kilometres of new lines, 1,363 kilometres of gauge conversion and 765 kilometres of doublings were completed during the last four years.

A total of 2,484 route kms were electrified during the Ninth Plan by the end of March, 2002 against the target of 2,300 route kms, exceeding it by 184 route kms. During the last four years 1,618 route kms have been electrified. During the Ninth Plan, a total of 3,757 kms of broad gauge lines were added. As against that during 2002-2003, a total of 1,202 kms of broad-gauge lines were added. During the current financial year - 2003-2004 - a total of 1,340 kms of broad-gauge lines are targeted for completion. Thus, the rate of addition of broad gauge lines is almost 80 per cent more than the Ninth Plan.

A number of projects are progressing expeditiously for socio-economic development in various States. A special thrust has been given to Jammu and Kashmir and the project of Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla has been declared as National Project. The funds for this project are being provided as an additionality to the gross budgetary support for Railways. The Prime Minister has fixed the target of completion of Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla rail link project as August 15, 2007. Besides this, Jammu-Udhampur is targeted for completion by March, 2004, and the line upto famous pilgrimage centre Katra is expected to be completed by March, 2005. Considering the present trend of availability of resources, it is expected that the ongoing projects would get completed in a time frame of about 10 years.

With the creation of seven new zones — East Central Railway, Hajipur; North Western Railway, Jaipur; North Central Railway, Allahabad; East Coast Railway, Bhubneswar; South East Central Railway, Bilaspur; South Western Railway, Hubli; and West Central Railway, Jabalpur — the number of zones has gone upto 16. The small zones have started yielding productivity with a focused attention to all round development of Railways.

High performance 6,000 horse power AC three-phase electric locomotive in collaboration with M/s Asea Brown Boverie of Switzerland has started its manufacture at Chittaranjan Locomotive Works and 4,000 horse power high speed diesel locomotives with General Motors technology at Diesel Locomotive Works. Their introduction has increased efficiency of rail services both in speed and load.

In the area of safety of train services, several initiatives have been set in motion. These include improving training modules for frontline railway men, improving their service conditions; voluntary retirement scheme for gangmen and loco-pilots (drivers) aged 50-57 years with option to give employment to one ward of each of such staff opting for voluntary retirement; to curtail accidents by human failure; presentation of a White Paper on Railway Safety in the Parliament in April, 2003; introduction of a Ten Year Corporate Safety Plan (2003-2013) at a cost of Rs. 31,835 crore; myriad technological inputs to improve safety of coaches; and above all, safety getting top most priority in all aspects of rail services to the nation; fixing accountability of railway personnel from the apex in the Ministry of Railways down the line upto gangmen for laxity on their part relating to train accidents have brought safety on the fore. Safety consciousness in all segments of rail services has become a buzzword. These measures have brought down the number of accidents from more than 400 a year to 350 during 2002-2003 and still lesser in 2003-2004 upto November, 2003. Efforts are on not to lower the guard in the area of rail safety.

To improve safety of rail services, several measures have been taken to upgrade signalling and telecom on the railways. In this connection, Anti-Collision Device, Track Circuiting, Continuous Track Circuiting, Modern Signalling and Interlocking Systems, Safety Enhancement of Level Crossing Gates, Auxiliary Warning System, Block Proving through Axle Counter, other Modern Signalling Equipment, Automatic Block Signalling, Modernisation of Signalling and Telecom under German Loan and Traffic Management System have been introduced. Besides, Railways have created a broad band of optic fibre cable network of about 14,000 route kms on the Golden Quadrilateral and Diagonal Routes, linking four Metro Cities. In addition, links connecting important cities of Mumbai-Ahmedabad, Mumbai-Pune, Secundrabad-Vijayawada-Chennai, Secundrabad-Wadi-Bangalore, Secundrabad-Wadi-Guntkal-Renigunta-Chennai, Delhi-Jaipur and Delhi-Agra-Jhansi have been commissioned. With this, 93 important cities and 1,165 railway stations have been connected on the optic fibre cable network. This connectivity is intended to cover 150 important cities and 1,500 railway stations during 2003-2004. In addition, efforts are afoot to improve the reliability of telecommunication links of Railways to improve safety of rail services.

Other safety aids like mobile train radio communication, walkie-talkie sets, satellite telephones at Zonal and Divisional level, have also been introduced to help strengthen safety measures on railways, including disaster management following train accidents in the form of rescue and relief measures.

In the area of passenger amenities, 599 new trains have been introduced, services of 481 trains extended and frequency of 148 trains increased during the period. Computerised Passenger Reservation System (PRS) has been extended from 427 in October, 1999, to 926 raising the coverage of reservation to 97 per cent. PRS has also been networked to enable passengers to reserve tickets from anywhere to any place. Added to this, booking and enquiry through internet has also been introduced. The facility of reserving tickets on internet, introduced on August 15, 2002, has been extended to 77 cities. Passengers can now enquire about their reservation status on internet. Yet another milestone in the area of PRS reservation is Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS), which after its introduction at 23 centres in Delhi Area of Northern Railway, was extended to nine stations in this zone. Buoyed by the success, UTS is being extended to four other zones. Under the UTS, passengers can book their unreserved tickets three days in advance. It also decongests long queues at the booking centres. Computerised ticket refund has been implemented successfully on South Central Railway and is being extended to other zonal railways. Multi-Media and Internet kiosks are also being set up at railway stations to provide maximum level satisfaction to waiting passengers. Besides, internet services on running trains after its successful trial by the RailTel Corporation between Tuglakabad and Faridabad in early 2003, are proposed to be introduced in one important train during 2003-2004.

Other important features relate to a 50 per cent drop in the registration of claims cases indicating perceptible improvement in claims management. Rules relating to Railway Claims Tribunal have been amended for expeditious disposal of claims cases and to make the system user friendly.

Yet another milestone towards passenger amenities is setting up of 13 multi-cuisine Food Plazas at Railway stations out of 47 Food Plazas now underway at important stations. Other highlights include introduction of free infant food below five years in Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains, rationalisation of menu and tariff of standard casserole meals, breakfast, tea and coffee, optional catering services in Jan Shatabdi trains, introduction of railways own produced packaged mineral water Rail Neer, all through the Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC).

Other important measures are rationalisation of freight structure, incentive to premier customers, mini rake scheme (policy for shortlead traffic), rationalisation of rate structure of parcel and luggage traffic, introduction of refrigerated van services for perishables and warehousing schemes through private participation, improving considerably revenue earning freight and luggage parcel traffic. As a result, the operating ratio of Railways, which was raised to as high as 98 in 1999-2000, has been brought down to 92.2 during 2002-2003, bringing the Railways out of the woods and improving their financial performance considerably.

A massive cleanliness and sanitation system has been introduced on Railways. This includes supply of special uniforms and a protective gear to the staff engaged in cleaning activities, introduction of mechanised cleaning processes at railway stations, mechanised cleaning in running trains and educating rail users. The Railways have also initiated action for establishment of an Automatic Coach Washing Plant.

Steps have also been taken to decentralise purchase activity from Railway Board at the apex to Zonal Railways, Production Units and enhancement of General Managers’ powers resulting in greater efficiency and cut down in delay. General Managers have been delegated financial powers upto Rs. 15 crore. Besides, measures have been taken for prevention of leakages of revenue in scrap disposal, downloading of tender documents on internet, including tender calendar, tender notices, purchase decisions for greater transparency. The Purchase Sections and Depots on various Zonal Railways and Production Units are now on par with the best anywhere in the world having acquired ISO-9000 certification.

As a result of several new initiatives taken during the last four years, freight traffic target for the terminal year of the current Tenth Plan at 624 Million Tonnes with annual growth rates of 3.7 per cent and passenger traffic of 5,885 millions with annual growth rates of 3.23 per cent are to be achieved as targeted. Besides, Indian Railways would have geared fully to meet the challenges of emerging globalisation of Indian economy by augmenting rail transport infrastructure in tune with the global market forces under the World Trade Organisation regime.