indian railway

Indian Railway

Today, Indian Railways is the third largest railway network in the world. It transports 23 million passengers every day and 2.65 million tonnes of freight traffic. The vision of Indian Railway is to provide safe, efficient, affordable, customer focused and environmentally sustainable integrated transportation solutions. However, over the past years, safety and efficiency of railways has become a great concern.

The railways were set up during the British era. The organizational model of the railway then was adopted by the independent Indian government without any changes. The rate of development of railway since independence has been slow and disappointing. For instance, we still follow the archaic organizational structure even after 6 decades. Hence, the need of the hour is to rework the organisational structure of the railway to transform Indian Railway and to modernise railway infrastructure, expand its capacity, secure safety, be more efficient and serve the needs of the people of the country at large and the country’s overall transport strategic needs of the 21st century.

This policy brief proposes reorganisation of current industry structure and proposes a new organizational structure for the railways to meet the needs of the 21st century.

Salient points covered in the policy brief:

  • Indian Railways – An Overview
  • Major constraints under the present organisational structure preventing the growth of railways
  • Policy Proposal- 3 Phases for Rail Revolution
  • Phase 1
    • Decentralisation of powers and operation
    • Reorganisation and empowerment of zonal railways
    • Functions and powers of Zonal companies
    • Review Mechanism
  • Phase 2
    • Redevelopment under PPP
    • Monetization of railway assets
    • Setting up of Production Units under Make in India Campaign
  • Phase 3
    • Review of zones by railway board

The policy brief estimates that by the end of a decade, the proposal would be able to revamp and modernize the present Indian Railway into a World Class mode of transportation to cater to the needs of 21st century and to support the inclusive growth of the nation.

You can download the full policy brief here: Policy Brief on Rail Re-Organisation

Contributed by: Ms. Roshni Rajiv

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