The Minister of
Railways Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu while presenting the Railway Budget
2016-17 in the Parliament today has proposed to transform Indian Railways
through seven Mission activities – Avataran. These missions are:
1.
Mission
25 Tonne
– It aims to increase revenue by augmenting carrying capacity. To achieve this 10-20%
freight loading will be done through 25-tonne axle-load wagons in 2016-17 and
target movement of 70% of freight traffic on high axle load wagons by FY19-20.
2.
Mission
Zero Accident:
It comprises of two sub missions
a.
Elimination
of unmanned level crossings: The goal is eliminate all unmanned level crossings
on Broad Gauge in the next 3-4 years through innovative financing mechanisms.
It will reduce deaths due to accidents and improve throughput of the network
b.
TCAS
(Train Collision Avoidance System): An indigenous technology has been developed
to equip 100% of the High Density Network with TCAS in the next 3 years. This
will prevent head on collisions and improve throughput by increasing average
sectional speeds.
3.
Mission
PACE (Procurement and Consumption Efficiency): This mission
aims to improve our procurement and consumption practices to improve the
quality of goods and services. It will introduce a culture of optimum usage by
adopting practices such as Vendor Managed Inventory, direct procurement of HSD,
new procedures for identification and disposal of scrap. Comprehensive review
of procurement and consumption of HSD will lead to saving more than Rs 1,500
crore in 2016-17.
4.
Mission
Raftaar:
It targets
doubling of average speeds of freights trains and increasing the average speed
of superfast mail/express trains by 25 kmph in the next 5 years. Loco hauled passenger
trains will be replaced by DEMU/MEMU over the next five years. It will
complement Mission 25 Tonne to increase throughput of the railway system.
5.
Mission
Hundred: This mission will commission
at least a hundred sidings in the next 2 years. The current siding/ PFT policy
would be revised to elicit greater private participation. An online portal will
be operated for accepting and processing all new applications, alongwith
decentralization of powers.
6.
Mission
beyond book-keeping: It will establish an accounting system
where outcomes can be tracked to inputs. This will transform IR as right
accounting would determine right costing and hence right pricing and right
outcomes.
7.
Mission
Capacity Utilisation: It proposes to prepare a blueprint for
making full use of the huge new capacity that will be created through two
Dedicated Freight Corridors between Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Kolkata scheduled to
be commissioned by 2019.
Shri Prabhu said that each of the Missions will be
headed by a Mission Director reporting directly to the Chairman, Railway Board
for a timely targeted delivery. They will be supported by officers from each
Zone/Production Unit/RDSO/Centralised Training Institutes. Each Mission will
have annual outcome based performance targets.
GG/VKS/MV