GPS in all locomotives by fiscal end: Railway Board chairman

All the locomotives will be equipped with Global Positioning System (GPS) devices by the end of FY20, Railway Board Chairman Vinod Kumar Yadav said here Sunday.

CCTVs will also be installed at the major junctions and express trains by the end of the financial year to improve passenger security, he said.

The GPS systems will be installed to determine the real time position of the trains, he said.

Yadav said that the project, as part of Real-time Train Information System (RTIS), will be implemented in collaboration with Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to improve punctuality of the trains.

"Position and speed of the train will be relayed through ISRO satellites to the Control Office Application (COA) system of Railways for automatic plotting of control charts," he said.

Yadav said that all the major railway stations will be equipped with Wi-Fi facilities by September.

He said that East Coast Railway (ECoR) aims to transport over 200 million tonne of freight in this fiscal.

"More funds will be allocated for completion of pending projects in Odisha hoping that land acquisition problems that have held them up will be sorted this financial year," he said.

Noting that there is demand for more trains from Bhubaneswar, the Railway Board chairman said, a survey has been sanctioned this year to run freight trains bypassing Bhubaneswar and Cuttack.

Yadav appreciated the work by ECoR for restoration of cyclone-ravaged Bhubaneswar and Puri railway stations and Puri coaching depot before the Rath Yatra and said that a MoU will be signed with the state government for redevelopment of the main entrance of Bhubaneswar railway station.

"The second entry from platform number six will also be developed and fund has been allocated for improvement of road connectivity to Bhubaneswar station," he said.

As there has been a significant growth in Railway traffic in the country in the past 25 to 30 years, the main focus of the Railways is on infrastructure development, he said.