Earlier in may/june Bilaspur-Gondia, Durg-Raigarh specials and now in july Durg-NZM superfast special ! wow thats great!!. Thank God ! SECR has of late, started running Special Trains.
For SECR, operating special trains are inevitable now to take care of increasing traffic. Although coaches have been permanently augmented in many SECR trains in last few years, no new regular train has been announced since last 3 or 4 rail budgets. Last announcement was probably in Feb'12 or Feb'13 of BSP-Bikaner/Bhagat Ki Kothi.
SECR being top revenue earning freight loading railway...
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zone since its inception, had almost every year been a leader in giving huge surplus revenues (revenue generated minus total expenses) to Indian Railways. With maximum emphasis on freight loading and revenue surplus generation for IRlys, the Passenger trains and railway network expansion took back seat in SECR. Doubling/trebling of tracks absolutely necessary for running additional freight trains was mostly done. Even highly profitable railway section like Bilaspur-Jharsuguda, the trebling project which started in early eighties today less than half commissioned. Profitable project was languishing while the scarce and precious railway finance were frittered away to finance hand full of other so called highly unremunerative & “socially desirable” new line projects.
Earlier for officials of predominantly freight zones like SECR, it was a better proposition to use the limited main line capacity for running more freight trains and give more profit to IRlys rather than running new or special express trains. It was learnt that typically there used to be very few proposals sent to Rly Board for new trains by such zones and that too under pressure of public representatives. In new scenario it will be in the interest of officials to ensure all-round development of their divisions/ zones. Hats off to the new promotion policy embarked upon by Hon. RM.
18 New parameters (Key Result Areas or KRAs) for judging the performance DRMs & other Rly officials has been formulated. Increase in freight loading and increase in originating passengers are now most important result areas each having 10 marks weightage (out of total 100 marks).
Now DRM/GM of every zone will strive to score on both KRAs (freight as well as passenger traffic) in order to get better appraisal. They will have to make proposals for new trains and run special trains if they don’t want to lose these 10 marks. They will also have to lookout for garnering additional freight traffic through better cooperation & coordination with local industries & adjoining divisions/zones.
Earlier more powers were delegated right from RM to GMs & DRMs in order to help them achieve their (tough) targets. First empower the personnel and then give them very tough targets, Great management indeed !! Prabhuji is Great!!!