Ashutosh Gangal, General Manager, Northern Railway, held a performance review meeting with the departmental heads of Northern Railway through video conferencing. Detailed discussions were conducted on the issues relating to — safety, rail fractures and rail joint problems during winter, train operations in foggy weather, digitisation of railway, material management and scrap disposal.
The GM advised on focusing efforts on the maintenance of track, welds of joints, signaling systems and rolling stock assets for unhindered running of trains during the cold foggy winter months. He added that the frontline staff are the eyes and ears of the railways, attention should be given to their periodic training and sensitisation to use of gadgets.
He took stock of the works being undertaken to remove bottlenecks to enhance speed of trains. Improvement of level crossings, turnouts, doubling, electrification, replacement of rails construction of ROBs and RUBs were some of the points touched upon. He called upon the concerned departments to expedite the processes. He also advised to maintain the adequate stock pile of materials needed for repair and maintenance of assets along with the timely disposal of scrap. He insisted on completion of digitalisation of all railway records to bring in more transparency and clarity on land ownership issues.
He expressed his concern over the rising cases of signal cable cutting by outsiders. He was informed that such cases are being dealt with heavy hand and prosecuted under Railways Act, signaling systems have been made fog conducive and detonators have been provided.
Expressing satisfaction on the performance of the various departments, Gangal shared that there has been no consequential train accident reported in the zone, the punctuality has been high and efforts are on to complete the engineering works.