NEW DELHI: Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Tuesday dismissed Opposition allegations regarding train punctuality, informing the Lok Sabha that 32 railway divisions have achieved over 90% punctuality while 17 out of 68 divisions maintain more than 80% punctuality.
The Bhavnagar rail division under Western Railway holds the top position for punctuality, maintaining a rate of over 99.6%. Following closely are the Madurai division at 99.2%, Ratlam at 98.9%, Bikaner at 98.1%, Sealdah at 98%, Rajkot at 97.7%, Ajmer at 97.1%, and Jodhpur at 96.1%.
Other divisions among the 32 that have surpassed 90% punctuality include Kota and Guntur, both with 95.7%, Ahmedabad at 95.1%, Bangalore and Alipur Duar at 94.4%, Guntakal at 94.3%, Mumbai Central at 92.9%, and Trivandrum at 91.3%, among others.
The Vijayawada rail division, with 89.5% punctuality, leads the 17 divisions that have achieved over 80% punctuality. It is followed by Firozpur division at 89.2%, Sonpur at 88.6%, Agra at 88.3%, Rangiya at 88.3%, Malda at 88.1%, Nagpur at 87.8%, Ranchi at 87.7%, Bhusaval at 87.4%, and Samastipur at 86.7%.
He said over 13,000 passenger trains are currently in operation, including 4,111 mail and express trains, 3,313 passenger trains, and 5,774 suburban trains. Vaishnaw stated 17,330 trains were operated during the Mahakumbh period. Additionally, 1,107 special trains were arranged to accommodate the Holi rush. The number of Holi special trains has consistently increased, from 604 in 2023-24 to 1,107 in 2024-25.