Railway Board chairman reviews punctuality of 'worst-performing' zones

Amid the delays occurring in the running of trains, Railway Board Chairman Ashwani Lohani today held a video conference with the worst performing zones and conducted a review of their speed restrictions.

The video conference was held with the general managers of eight zonal railways which had reported less than 70 per cent punctuality.

The eight railway zones are East Coast Railway, East Central Railway, Eastern Railway, North Central Railway, North Eastern Railway, Northeast Frontier Railway, Northern Railway, and South East Central Railway.

"The punctuality performance of these zones was discussed in detail for the current year. The CRB said that blocks are to be optimally used. These are needed works, but the zonal railways need to maximise the output," said an official here.

The Zonal Railways raised the issues of improving the time tables and availability of coaching stock and other issues.

"The CRB ordered to monitor the timing of more than half a dozen trains that are running too late for the last few days," the official said.

Official figures show that almost 30 per cent of the trains ran late in the financial year 2017-18 -- the Indian Railways' worst punctuality performance in three years.

From April 2017 to March 2018, the punctuality of mail and express trains was 71.39 per cent, down from 76.69 per cent in the corresponding period of 2016-2017, which is a deterioration of 5.30 per cent.