The total approximate earnings of Indian Railways on originating basis during April 1st to December 20th 2011 is INR 71613.12 crore registering an increase of 10.20 per cent in comparison to INR 64982.35 crore achieved during the same period last year. During this period, the total goods earnings have gone up from INR 43257.89 crore to INR 47653.34 crore, an increase of 10.16%. The total passenger revenue earnings at INR 20249.84 crore increased by 9.45% when compared to INR 18501.61 crore during the same period of last year.
The total approximate numbers of passengers booked during the period April 1st to December 20th 2011 were 5986.86 million compared to 5691.04 million during the same period last year, showing an increase of 5.20%
Railways have carried 618.00 million tonnes of revenue earning freight traffic during 1 April 1st to November 30th2011. The freight carried shows an increase of 24.56 million tonnes over the freight traffic of 593.44 million tonnes actually carried during the corresponding period last year, registering an increase of 4.14%
In the calendar year 2011, Indian Railways has achieved scrap sale of INR 3748.68 crore till November 2011.
SAFETY PERFORMANCE
Safety in train operations is accorded the highest priority by Indian Railways and all measures are being taken on a continual basis to prevent accidents and enhance safety. A High Level Safety Review Committee, headed by Dr Anil Kakodkar former chairman of Atomic Energy Commission was set up. The Committee would lay down the road map on safety related issues which need to be addressed in the short term and the long term and would give invaluable recommendations which would have a significant bearing on further improvement in the systems and protocols. Indian Railways would make all efforts to address the recommendations of the High Level Committee with a view to achieve further improvement in the safety environment on the Indian Railways. The Committee had already held several meetings with senior functionaries in Railway Board, Zonal Railways, Divisional Railways level and RDSO. Besides making an assessment of the existing safety practices, the Committee is also soliciting feedback from general public in Indian Railway’s official website.
The number of consequential train accidents reduced in 2010-11 in comparison to the previous year (141 as against 165) registering a decline of 14.5%. In the current year also, a similar declining trend has been observed as 91 consequential train accidents took place during April to 15th December, 2011 in comparison to 97 during the corresponding period of the previous year.
Accident per Million Train Kilometres is an important safety index used by most of the Railways in the world. This has also come down from 0.44 Accident per Million Train Kilometers during 2002-2003 to 0.15 in 2010-11 despite quantum increase in the volume of traffic carried by Indian Railways over the years.
A vigorous special campaign was organised during the year to create awareness among the road users regarding precautions to be observed at level crossings which included newspaper advertisement, distribution of pamphlets and posters, radio TV programmes, public announcements, counselling at schools, interactions with village Panchayats and safety seminars.
Service Trials of Train Protection Warning System project on non suburban section are in progress on Delhi-Agra Section of National Capital Region. Works of provision of TPWS have been sanctioned over 895 Route Kilometres of important Automatic Block Signalling Sections of high density network spread over five Railways, viz. Eastern, North Central, Southern, South Eastern and Western Railways in 2010-11. A pilot project of TPWS was commissioned on suburban section (50 Route Kms) of Southern Railway.
MODERNIZATION OF INDIAN RAILWAYS
In a significant move to give further impetus to Railways’ modernization plans an Expert Group has been constituted under the Chairmanship of Mr Sam Pitroda to recommend ways and means to modernize Indian Railways to meet the challenges of economic growth, the aspirations of the common man, the needs of changing technology and the expanding market while at the same time ensuring adequate focus on addressing social and strategic requirements of the country. The Committee will inter alia address issues connected with organization, management and resource mobilization and professionalization of manpower on Indian Railways.
STRENGTHENING OF SECURITY ON RAILWAYS