Para 4: . vicious cycle of under-investment.
Para 6 : carry a heavy burden of expectations.
Para 7 : In the next five years, our priority will be to significantly improve capacity on the existing high-density networks.
Para 10 : We have prepared a forward-looking agenda. Over the next five years, IR has to go through a transformation. We have fixed four goals for ourselves.
a) To deliver a sustained and measurable improvement in customer experience.
We are launching initiatives that will systematically address customer concerns about cleanliness,
comfort, accessibility, service quality and speed of trains.
b) To make Rail a safer means of travel.
c) To expand Bhartiya Rail’s capacity substantially and to modernise infrastructure.
Given the importance of rail travel for our citizens we will increase our daily passenger carrying capacity from 21million to 30 million. We will also increase track length by 20% from 1,14,000 km to 1,38,000 km, and we will grow our annual freight carrying capacity from 1 billion to 1.5 billion tonnes.
d) Finally, to make Bhartiya Rail financially self-sustainable.
This will mean generating large surpluses from our operations not only to service the debt needed to
fund our capacity expansion, but also to invest on an on-going basis to replace our depreciating assets. This will require material improvement in operating efficiency, tighter control over costs, greater discipline over project selection and execution, and a significant boost to Railways’ revenue generating capacity.
Para 12 : How will we achieve this? Our execution strategy will have five drivers:
a) Adopting a medium-term perspective:
Any organization must address short-term priorities without glossing over the long-term and medium-term vision. As Vinoba Bhave once said, “You will stumble if you look close to your heels and would certainly fall if you ignore the vision of the long road.” Madam Speaker, this Railway Budget is part of a trilogy of documents that chart out our vision for the future.
The first in the series is the White Paper that has been placed today for the information of the House.
The second part is today’s Budget for the year 2015-16. This will be followed by a Vision-2030 document that we intend to bring out later this year. The proposals contained in this Budget should, therefore, be seen as the beginning of a Five Year Action Plan to transform the Railways.
b) Building Partnerships:
Transforming the Railways will require us to partner with the key stakeholders.
First, consistent with the Prime Minister’s vision of cooperative federalism, we will work closely with the States to make the Railways the backbone of national connectivity. Their economies and citizens will benefit dramatically from an improved railway system. The voice of the locals will reverberate through the State Governments in the planning and execution of railway projects. They will also be able to raise financing through special purpose vehicles that we will create with them. Most of them have already expressed a keen interest to make the improvement of the Railways a joint
endeavour and a shared success.
Second, we will partner with PSUs to ensure that sufficient capacity is built to transport critical
commodities like coal, iron ore, and cement, etc., from where they are extracted or imported to where they are consumed or processed.
Third, we will partner with multilateral and bi-lateral organizations and other governments to gain access to long term financing and technology from overseas.
Finally, we will partner with the private sector to improve last mile connectivity, expand our fleet of rolling stock and modernize our station infrastructure.
Here I must mention that Rail will continue to be our precious national asset. It will continue to serve the common man. The people of India will always own Railways.
c) Leveraging additional resources:
Over the next five years, we envisage an investment of Rs. 8.5 lakh crore. A broad indicative five-year investment plan is attached as Annex 1 to the speech.
Budgetary support is the quickest and easiest option to finance the plan but the Ministry of Finance also faces challenges of competing demands although a small initial contribution to Railways can be catalytic. But the scale of our investment needs is such that it will require us to seek multiple sources of funding. We will tap other sources of finance. Multilateral development banks and pension funds have expressed keen interest in financing new investments. Their time horizon is aligned with
ours. They seek sources of predictable and recurring revenue, which we can provide through the issuance of long-term debt instruments to fund revenue generating railway projects.
d) Revamping management practices, systems, processes, and re-tooling of human resources:
To get the most out of the additional resources that we will be investing, we will need to ensure the highest standards of operational and business efficiency. I am happy to report an improvement on our financial performances in the year 2014-15 relative to what we had anticipated earlier. I propose the operating ratio for 2015-16 at 88.5% as against a targeted operating ratio of 91.8%in 2014-15 and 93.6% in 2013-14. I am pleased to state that not only will this be the best operating ratio in the last 9 years but the best after the VIth Pay Commission.
The Railways will not be able to deliver sustained improvement in operating efficiency unless changes are made to speed up decision making, tighten accountability, and improve management information systems.
Our people are our biggest asset. Even in the short term that I have held this portfolio I have seen the enthusiasm and dedication of Railway personnel across the country. For our transformation journey to succeed it will be very important to harness the talent of our employees through training and development.
e) Setting standards for Governance and Transparency:
The Railways belongs to the whole nation. Its functioning must conform to the highest standards of
governance and transparency. Indian Railways’ decisions must be fair to all our stakeholders; from our poorest customers, to our employees and our business partners. My first decision as a minister was to delegate all my tender approving powers to the level of general managers.
Transparency has many dimensions. It requires better quality of information gathering within that system and improved norms for disclosure of that information. It requires reduction of discretion and standardization of procedures. It requires accountability. Studies have shown that greater transparency and accountability are pro-poor instruments, since the relatively poor suffer more from lack of transparency. Apart from delegation of powers, I am proposing to undertake measures with a
view to bringing in transparency in the day-to-day activities benefitting the common man.
11 Major Thrusts
1. Quality of life in journeys.
2. Station Redevelopment
3. Capacity Augmentation
4. Safety
5. Technology upgradation
6. Partnerships for development
7. Improvements to Management Processes and Systems
8. Resource Mobilisation
9. Human Resources
10. Energy and sustainability
11. Transparency and Governance initiatives
Other areas :
Social initiatives
Tourism
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11 Thrust areas:
1. Quality of life in journey :
Cleanliness: Swatcch Rail under SBA- Swatcch rail swatcch Bharat.
Surveillance
31. For the safety of our women passengers, surveillance cameras will be provided on a pilot basis in selected mainline coaches and ladies’ compartments of suburban coaches without compromising on privacy.
Entertainment
Station facilities
34. So far, 1052 stations have been identified for upgradation of Passenger Amenities at Station under Adarsh station scheme. It is proposed to include 200 more stations under this scheme.
35. Wi-Fi at all A1 and A category stations is being provided. Further, as part of Digital India initiative, Wi - Fi will be provided at B category stations as well.
36. Online booking of retiring rooms has already been initiated. The facility of self-operated lockers would also gradually be made available at stations. It is proposed to provide concierge services through the IRCTC at major stations for the assistance of passengers for their pick up and drop. We will also provide a facility for online booking of wheel chair on payment basis for senior citizens, patients and the differently-abled passengers through IRCTC on select stations.
Train capacity enhancement
Comfortable travel
PS : Use of CSR, MPLAD funds ; Better amenities to senior citizens, differently abled people.
2. Station Redevelopment
Para 6 : carry a heavy burden of expectations.
Para 7 : In the next five years, our priority will be to significantly improve capacity on the existing high-density networks.
Para 10 : We have prepared a forward-looking agenda. Over the next five years, IR has to go through a transformation. We have fixed four goals for ourselves.
a) To deliver a sustained and measurable improvement in customer experience.
We are launching initiatives that will systematically address customer concerns about cleanliness,
comfort, accessibility, service quality and speed of trains.
b) To make Rail a safer means of travel.
c) To expand Bhartiya Rail’s capacity substantially and to modernise infrastructure.
Given the importance of rail travel for our citizens we will increase our daily passenger carrying capacity from 21million to 30 million. We will also increase track length by 20% from 1,14,000 km to 1,38,000 km, and we will grow our annual freight carrying capacity from 1 billion to 1.5 billion tonnes.
d) Finally, to make Bhartiya Rail financially self-sustainable.
This will mean generating large surpluses from our operations not only to service the debt needed to
fund our capacity expansion, but also to invest on an on-going basis to replace our depreciating assets. This will require material improvement in operating efficiency, tighter control over costs, greater discipline over project selection and execution, and a significant boost to Railways’ revenue generating capacity.
Para 12 : How will we achieve this? Our execution strategy will have five drivers:
a) Adopting a medium-term perspective:
Any organization must address short-term priorities without glossing over the long-term and medium-term vision. As Vinoba Bhave once said, “You will stumble if you look close to your heels and would certainly fall if you ignore the vision of the long road.” Madam Speaker, this Railway Budget is part of a trilogy of documents that chart out our vision for the future.
The first in the series is the White Paper that has been placed today for the information of the House.
The second part is today’s Budget for the year 2015-16. This will be followed by a Vision-2030 document that we intend to bring out later this year. The proposals contained in this Budget should, therefore, be seen as the beginning of a Five Year Action Plan to transform the Railways.
b) Building Partnerships:
Transforming the Railways will require us to partner with the key stakeholders.
First, consistent with the Prime Minister’s vision of cooperative federalism, we will work closely with the States to make the Railways the backbone of national connectivity. Their economies and citizens will benefit dramatically from an improved railway system. The voice of the locals will reverberate through the State Governments in the planning and execution of railway projects. They will also be able to raise financing through special purpose vehicles that we will create with them. Most of them have already expressed a keen interest to make the improvement of the Railways a joint
endeavour and a shared success.
Second, we will partner with PSUs to ensure that sufficient capacity is built to transport critical
commodities like coal, iron ore, and cement, etc., from where they are extracted or imported to where they are consumed or processed.
Third, we will partner with multilateral and bi-lateral organizations and other governments to gain access to long term financing and technology from overseas.
Finally, we will partner with the private sector to improve last mile connectivity, expand our fleet of rolling stock and modernize our station infrastructure.
Here I must mention that Rail will continue to be our precious national asset. It will continue to serve the common man. The people of India will always own Railways.
c) Leveraging additional resources:
Over the next five years, we envisage an investment of Rs. 8.5 lakh crore. A broad indicative five-year investment plan is attached as Annex 1 to the speech.
Budgetary support is the quickest and easiest option to finance the plan but the Ministry of Finance also faces challenges of competing demands although a small initial contribution to Railways can be catalytic. But the scale of our investment needs is such that it will require us to seek multiple sources of funding. We will tap other sources of finance. Multilateral development banks and pension funds have expressed keen interest in financing new investments. Their time horizon is aligned with
ours. They seek sources of predictable and recurring revenue, which we can provide through the issuance of long-term debt instruments to fund revenue generating railway projects.
d) Revamping management practices, systems, processes, and re-tooling of human resources:
To get the most out of the additional resources that we will be investing, we will need to ensure the highest standards of operational and business efficiency. I am happy to report an improvement on our financial performances in the year 2014-15 relative to what we had anticipated earlier. I propose the operating ratio for 2015-16 at 88.5% as against a targeted operating ratio of 91.8%in 2014-15 and 93.6% in 2013-14. I am pleased to state that not only will this be the best operating ratio in the last 9 years but the best after the VIth Pay Commission.
The Railways will not be able to deliver sustained improvement in operating efficiency unless changes are made to speed up decision making, tighten accountability, and improve management information systems.
Our people are our biggest asset. Even in the short term that I have held this portfolio I have seen the enthusiasm and dedication of Railway personnel across the country. For our transformation journey to succeed it will be very important to harness the talent of our employees through training and development.
e) Setting standards for Governance and Transparency:
The Railways belongs to the whole nation. Its functioning must conform to the highest standards of
governance and transparency. Indian Railways’ decisions must be fair to all our stakeholders; from our poorest customers, to our employees and our business partners. My first decision as a minister was to delegate all my tender approving powers to the level of general managers.
Transparency has many dimensions. It requires better quality of information gathering within that system and improved norms for disclosure of that information. It requires reduction of discretion and standardization of procedures. It requires accountability. Studies have shown that greater transparency and accountability are pro-poor instruments, since the relatively poor suffer more from lack of transparency. Apart from delegation of powers, I am proposing to undertake measures with a
view to bringing in transparency in the day-to-day activities benefitting the common man.
11 Major Thrusts
1. Quality of life in journeys.
2. Station Redevelopment
3. Capacity Augmentation
4. Safety
5. Technology upgradation
6. Partnerships for development
7. Improvements to Management Processes and Systems
8. Resource Mobilisation
9. Human Resources
10. Energy and sustainability
11. Transparency and Governance initiatives
Other areas :
Social initiatives
Tourism
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11 Thrust areas:
1. Quality of life in journey :
Cleanliness: Swatcch Rail under SBA- Swatcch rail swatcch Bharat.
- to create a new department for keeping our stations and trains clean.
- Integrated cleaning will be taken up as a specialized activity, which will include engaging
- professional agencies and also training our staff in the latest cleaning practices.
- Railways plan to set up ‘waste to energy’ conversion plants near major coaching terminals to dispose waste in an environment-friendly manner.
- One pilot plant will be set up, to begin with, followed by more plants in a phased manner.
The condition of toilet facilities in our stations and trains needs major improvement- Bio-toilets and vacuum toilets.
The quality of Indian Railways’ On-board Housekeeping Service
Help-line :Every responsive organization should have a system toaddress grievances from its valued customers.
Ticketing: ‘Operation Five Minutes’ to ensure that a passenger travelling unreserved can purchase
a ticket within five minutes. Provision of modified ‘hotbuttons’, coin vending machines and ‘single destination teller’ windows will drastically reduce the transaction time.
For the differently-abled travellers, a special initiative is being launched whereby they can purchase concessional etickets after one-time registration. It is also proposed to work towards developing a multi-lingual e-ticketing portal. We will move towards crediting all refunds through the banking system.
Catering:
Leveraging technology:
27. Hand-held terminals will now be provided to Travelling
Ticket Examiners (TTEs), which can be used for verification
of passengers and downloading charts. This system will help us to move towards paperless ticketing and charting and expedite finalization of refund claims apart from saving reams of paper. We are also exploring the idea of extending the facility of SMS on mobiles as a valid proof of travel for PRS tickets as well.
28. We are putting in place an integrated customer portal, which will be a single interface for the customers to access different services. Seamless navigation would be possible across different websites of Railways.
29. A centrally managed Railway Display Network is expected to be introduced in over 2,000 stations over the next two years which will aid in providing information on train arrival/departure, reservations, general and emergency messages and also any other information of interest to
citizens. This facility will promote “Digital India Campaign” and also unlock huge advertising revenue potential.
30. We propose to introduce an “SMS Alert” service to inform passengers in advance the updated arrival/departure time of trains at starting or destination stations. Similarly SMS alert would be sent 15/30 minutes in advance of arrival of the train at the destination.
31. For the safety of our women passengers, surveillance cameras will be provided on a pilot basis in selected mainline coaches and ladies’ compartments of suburban coaches without compromising on privacy.
Entertainment
Station facilities
34. So far, 1052 stations have been identified for upgradation of Passenger Amenities at Station under Adarsh station scheme. It is proposed to include 200 more stations under this scheme.
35. Wi-Fi at all A1 and A category stations is being provided. Further, as part of Digital India initiative, Wi - Fi will be provided at B category stations as well.
36. Online booking of retiring rooms has already been initiated. The facility of self-operated lockers would also gradually be made available at stations. It is proposed to provide concierge services through the IRCTC at major stations for the assistance of passengers for their pick up and drop. We will also provide a facility for online booking of wheel chair on payment basis for senior citizens, patients and the differently-abled passengers through IRCTC on select stations.
Train capacity enhancement
Comfortable travel
PS : Use of CSR, MPLAD funds ; Better amenities to senior citizens, differently abled people.
2. Station Redevelopment
- A transformed station can change the skyline of small and medium cities and bring in revenues, andbecome an incubator of local economy.
- We want our Railway stations to be iconic structures with architecture reflecting the culture and character of the city. We invite the state governments and the local bodies to be our partners in this endeavour.
- We propose to develop Satellite Railway terminals in major cities with the twin purpose of decongesting the city as well as providing service to passengers residing in suburbs.
3. Capacity Augmentation
Network expansion
Expansion of freight handling capacity
Improving train speed
Bullet train - High speed train and diamond quadilateral
Upgrading manufacturing capability
PS: Last mile connectivity is of priority for both freight and passenger.
4. Safety
66. We are preparing a five-year corporate safety plan by June 2015 indicating annual quantifiable targets. We will examine all pending recommendations made by High Level Safety Review Committee headed by Dr. Kakodkar Committee by April 2015.
PS: ROB, RUB
5. Technology upgradation
71. Every dynamic and thriving organization needs to innovate and re-invent its practices. In accordance with the vision of Hon’ble Prime Minister for Innovation, Technology Development and Manufacturing, we intend to set up an innovation council called “Kayakalp” for the purpose of business re-engineering and introducing a spirit of innovation in Railways.
PS: eliminate unmanned crossing.
6. Partnerships for development
77. We will revamp the existing PPP cell in the Ministry to make it more result oriented.
78. Railways have launched new Model Concession Agreements recently for many of the participative models, and guidelines for this have been issued.
7.Improvements to Management Processes and Systems
88. Madam Speaker, we have limited resources and thus must ensure that all public expenditure results in an optimal outcome. We, therefore, intend to set up a working group to modify the present system of accounting, to ensure tracking of expenditure to desired outcomes. The data on costing would be available online including costs incurred on constructing, augmenting, maintaining and operating railway lines. This would also help in undertaking post commissioning evaluation studies.
89. We also propose to have the train operations audited with a view to increasing productivity and bringing in transparency.
90. We are also proposing to expand paperless working in our material management system. In line with focus on ease of doing business, we will digitally integrate our vendors through Vendor Interface Management System to provide single window interface to vendors.
8. Resource Mobilisation
92. First, the Union government’s financial resources (gross budgetery support)are themselves over-stretched.
Second, internal generation of resources will pick up once the Railway reforms start, GDP growth occurs and the Railways begin to attract traffic that has moved elsewhere, especially to the road transport sector.
Third, for remunerative projects, it should be possible to generate resources through market borrowings, routed through partnerships with Railway PSUs and IRFC.
Fourth, there are several areas where resources can be generated through PPP.
Fifth, moving away from debt, some projects can be equity-driven, through partnerships with State governments.
All these lead to a simple proposition. One can leverage the resources one possesses better.
9. Human Resources
(.. not complete)
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