NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has pulled up railways for making no progress so far related to ideas received during the Rail Vikas Shivir held in November last year. The concept behind the three-day exercise inaugurated by PM was to crowdsource ideas to improve railway functioning.
According to sources, railway was asked about the progress two-three times during routine meetings in the PMO but the public transporter did not have much to share. Unhappy with the response from railways, PMO has now asked MoS for Railways Rajen Gohain to monitor the implementation of ideas on regular basis. On January 27, a meeting was convened in Railway Board under Member Traffic Mohammed Jamshed and all board members were assigned the tasks sector wise with deadlines. They have been asked to send updates on progress made fortnightly.
“The PM has inquired about the progress made in ideas but railways did not have anything concrete to tell. He expressed his anguish over the delay,” sources said.
The ideas have been divided into nine themes with each having initiatives and action plans that are supposed to be taken by railways. There are goals, milestones, resource requirements, outcomes and responsibilities linked to each area. “Each theme has been assigned to a board member and they have been asked to track initiatives and works. The good part is that now work has picked up and we saw launch of non-fare revenue policies and unveiling the first phase of station redevelopment with 23 stations offered for redevelopment,” a railway official said.
A transformation directorate has also been created for implementation of Rail Vikas Shivir ideas. It includes dedicated railways staff to ensure implementation of the idea. Railways had crowd sourced ideas to reform railways from its 13 lakh employees and had received 1.5 lakh suggestions.