Today's Cancelled Trains
Railway officials said it was not possible to give weekly updates as the public transporter prepared only monthly review reports.
NEW DELHI: Concerned over the slow pace of projects, the Cabinet Secretariat had written to Railways to send in a weekly review of key rail projects but the latter has replied that projects could be reviewed only on a monthly basis.
The Prime Minister’s Office and the Cabinet Secretariat have been showing a keen interest in the progress of railway projects.
The Cabinet Secretariat wanted Railways to provide it with weekly updates on the status of doubling, gauge conversion and electrification projects and on the construction of new lines. It wanted the details along the lines of those provided by the Nitin Gadkari-led Ministry of Road, Transport, and Highways.
In a meeting held last week at the Cabinet Secretariat, railway officials said it was not possible to give weekly updates as the public transporter prepared only monthly review reports.
“It’s not possible to review rail projects on a weekly basis as our progress is measured on the basis of work completed between two stations unlike roads and highways where parameter is based on the length of roads constructed,” said a source in Railways.
The sources further said that in Railways’ internal assessment reports, one might find that on many days progress would be zero.
“That doesn’t mean that whole work was completed on the day of the completion of the work between two stations and that no work was done on rest of the days. This is how we monitor the progress of work in Railways,” the source added.
Earlier, the Prime Minister’s Office had expressed concern over the slow pace of work in Railways. In a letter to the ministry in September, the Prime Minister’s Office questioned low budgetary spending in the April-June quarter by Railways while some ministries like road transport was doing good work.
To expedite work on 77 projects announced in the budget this year, the Railway Board has already got a go-ahead from Niti Aayog, permitting Railways to invite tenders even for projects awaiting its in-principle approval.
Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu had refrained from announcing any new trains or big new rail line project in the budget and the focus was on the completion of pending projects and the doubling and tripling of existing lines to relive the already-chocked rail network.
Railway has been banking on extra budgetary support to complete its pending projects. It is looking at the extra budgetary monetary support of `8.5 lakh crore in 2015-18 and the Life Insurance Corporation of India has already pledged to pump in `1.5 lakh crore in the next five years.
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