Rail ministry sets up committee to review freight, passenger traffic growth

Will suggest plan of action for traffic optimization in the short and long term

After setting up committees to review, restructure and revive its finances, administration, rules and the railway board itself, the rail ministry has now constituted another panel that will look at its track record on freight and passenger traffic fronts.

The eight member committee, to be headed by Railway Board’s Additional Member Mohd Jamshed, will identify factors and issues affecting growth of freight and passenger traffic and suggest a plan of action for traffic optimization in the short term by 2015-16 and long term by 2018-19.

 

The Committee will also review the traffic growth in passenger and freight segments between 2010 and 2015. The idea is to identify bottlenecks, which can be removed in the short and the long term for capacity augmentation.

The railways has also asked the committee to suggest innovative measures to enhance throughput to achieve traffic growth of upto 15%. 

“The committee will develop a brief action plan for implementation by Zonal Railways next financial year towards optimization of traffic throughput,” the ministry said.

The committee will also suggest policy changes required to be undertaken by the Railway Board to achieve higher traffic output in the freight and passenger categories. The panel will submit its report within six weeks. Other members of the panel include officials from Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation (DFCC), Container Corporation of India (CONCOR), zonal railways and the railway board.  

The rail ministry, under Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu, has so far set up a committee under economist Bibek Debroy for restructuring of the railway board, former financial services secretary D K Mittal to review finances, former Delhi Metro Rail Corp (DMRC) Managing Director E Sreedharan to suggest measures for transparency.