Indian Railways achievement during 2011

compartments etc, and prosecution of offenders, apprehended with stolen railway property, under the Railway Property (Unlawful Possession) Act 1966.

INTRODUCTION OF NEW TRAINS

In Railway Budget 2011-12, a total number of 131 new trains were announced, out of which 70 new trains have been introduced and 61 new trains are yet to be introduced. Out of extension of 33 trains, 29 trains have been extended and 4 trains are yet to be extended. Out of increase in frequency of 17 trains, frequency of 15 trains has been increased and frequency of 2 trains are yet to be increased. Earnest efforts are being made to meet all the budget targets by the end of the financial year.

FRESH MEASURES TAKEN TO PREVENT MISUSE OF TATKAL SCHEME

The Tatkal booking system was introduced on Indian Railways to enable passengers needing to travel in emergency to avail reserved accommodation at a short notice. The scheme has been modified from November 21st 2011 to eliminate the possibility of misuse of the facility by touts/miscreants by exploiting the vulnerability of needy passengers, wanting to travel at a short notice by charging a high premium.

Under the modified scheme, the Advanced Reservation Period has been reduced from 2 days to 1 day, excluding the journey date. Rail travel agents/rail travel service agencies have been restricted from booking tatkal tickets at the reservation counters/over the internet between 8 hours to 10 hours and booking can now be done only on presenting self-attested photocopy of identity proof of at least one of the travelling passengers.

RESERVED TICKETING THROUGH MOBILE PHONE

To bring further convenience to the rail users, Indian Railways has offered the service of booking E-Ticket over the mobile. The detailed procedure of booking through mobile is available on the IRCTC website namely www.irctc.co.in. Whenever a passenger books a reserved ticket through Mobile phone, he will receive a message through SMS with full details of the ticket including PNR, Train No, date of journey, class, etc. This virtual message would be treated at par with the print out of the e ticket which at present is taken out by the passengers and is known as Electronic Reservation Slip. Hence, with this virtual message, passengers would not be required to take a print-out of e ticket to be carried with them.

REAL TRAIN INFORMATION SYSTEM OPENED TO PUBLIC

In a major passenger friendly move, Indian Railways opened the first phase of the Real Train Information System in October 2011 to public for accurate train tracking thus heralding a new era of application of advanced communication and information technologies in various Railway related activities. This new tracking system is based on Satellite Imaging for Rail Navigation and has been developed jointly by the Ministry of Railways’ Research arm namely Research, Design and Standards Organization (RDSO), Lucknow and IIT, Kanpur. This facility provides accurate train running information on a click of a button or through SMS thereby overcoming limitations of the existing train information dissemination through telephone number 139 which is mainly dependent on manual collection of train running information. This information is available on website “http://www.simran.in”. To begin with, at present, this service is available for six pairs of Rajdhani & Shatabdi trains and would be expanded further in due course of time.

DEVELOPMENTS ON DEDICATED FREIGHT CORRIDOR PROJECT

The progress on the two ambitious Railway projects of construction of Dedicated Freight Corridors namely Eastern Corridor from Dankuni to Ludhiana and Western Corridor from JNPT (Mumbai) to Dadri (near Delhi) has been good. Major portions of Western Corridor are being funded with Japanese assistance and Eastern Corridor with World Bank assistance. World Bank approved loan of USD 975 million for Khurja-Bhaupur section of Eastern Freight Corridor on May 31st 2011. Two loan agreements have already been signed with Japan International Cooperation Agency for Western DFC which includes loan agreement for Phase-I (Rewari-Vadodara) and Engineering Services Loan agreement for Phase-II (Mumbai-Vadodara and Rewari-Dadri).

ADARSH STATION SCHEME

The scheme of Adarsh Station has been introduced from the year 2009. Adarsh Stations are provided with basic facilities such as drinking water, adequate toilets, catering services, waiting rooms and dormitories especially for lady passengers, better signage etc.

During 2009-10, 378 stations on Indian Railways were identified to be developed under Adarsh station scheme. Work at 365 stations under the scheme has been completed and work at remaining 13 stations is targeted for completion in 2011-12.

During 2010-11, 201 stations were additionally identified as per budget to be developed under Adarsh stations scheme. Work at 73 stations has been completed and work at remaining 128 stations is targeted for completion in 2011-12.

During 2011-12, 266 stations were additionally identified to be developed under Adarsh station scheme. Out of this work at 9 stations has been completed and work at another 109 stations is targeted for completion in 2011-12 and at 148 remaining stations in 2012-13.

DEVELOPMENT OF MULTIFUNCTIONAL COMPLEX