Railways Minister lays emphasis on safety and security of passengers

Minister of Railways Sadananda Gowda on Monday said focusing on core issues like safety and security of passengers was his main agenda followed by cleanliness and providing amenities.

Gowda said that the Railway Board held a series of meetings to review recommendations on various technological aspects aimed at examining the recommendations with regard to their feasibility and implementation.

"Safety is our primary concern and we will take care of the safety and security of the people first, followed by services, passenger amenities and cleanliness. These are the core areas that we wanted to gear up in the budget and we want to take up the issues further," Gowda said.

Listing out the major achievements and initiatives of the Ministry of Railways since May to August this year, Gowda said that a special freight incentive scheme has been launched to monetize the empty flow of wagons by offering automatic rebate to customers moving commodities on traditional empty flow routes.

"Freight loading has been increased by 5 percent. Freight earnings have been increased by 12.3 percent, passenger's numbers has been increased by 4.75 percent and passenger earnings have been increased by 23 percent over the previous year," he added.

Meanwhile, laying emphasis on one of the major issues of cleanliness of railway stations, Gowda said that 30 additional mail and express trains have been covered under On-Board Housekeeping Service (OBHS) to ensure cleanliness in the trains on move.

"For cleanliness, inspections by the senior officers have been activated. So far, 665 stations across all zonal railways have been thoroughly inspected. And, from 6th June, we started special cleanliness drive in almost all the railway stations and it is being monitored with CCTV's also," he said.

Gowda added that to improve the level of cleanliness on trains and at stations, the budget allocation for cleanliness in the current year has been increased by 40 percent over the previous year.