New Delhi: Railway minister Suresh Prabhu has directed the officials to conduct water audit for the national transporter. Also, the minister apparently eying monetisation of land assets to garner funds for the cash starved railways has asked for digitisation of railway held land for developing a labd directory.
The minister on Monday came straight to the ministry of railways from his assignments in Australia as the Sherpa of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the G20 summit.
“The minister wants a thorough audit of water consumption by the railways. The objective is assess the extent of wastage and find ways to optimise the use of scarce resource.
The audit has to be done at all the railway stations. The move will help the railways keep a check on the consumption of water in trains and stations and for its better use,” said a senior official of the Railway Board.
Furthermore, Mr Prabhu has sought for developing a digital land record directory equipped with the GPS technology so that the land asset could be tracked at the Central level. The railway is one of the largest land holding agency in the country.
There has been a growing view within the railways that the land asset, which is not immediately required by the railways should be monetised to generate additional resources to fund the long pending projects of the railways.
“With growing urbanisation, there is much of underlying values of the land asset of the railways, which has not yet been tapped in any serious manner.
Therefore, the digital land record directory equipped with GPS could enable the Railway Board for better planning at a time when the government seeks transformation of the railway infrastructure,” said the official.
The minister has also sought from the officials to make better refuelling of the diesel loco. Besides, Mr Prabhu is also seeking constitution of a directorate of environment within the railways for better project management and speedy approval, said the official.
