New Delhi: Railways earned Rs 1,00,622 crore during April-November as compared to Rs 89,341.26 crore during the same period last year, registering an increase of 12.63 per cent. It carried 713.11 million tonnes (MT) of freight traffic during April-November, registering an increase of 5.24 per cent from last year.
Beginning October 2, cleanliness drive was launched by Railways across the country. The Railways selected 50 stations to be outsourced for cleanliness drive. These include New Delhi, Varanasi, Howrah, Sealdah, Mumbai Central, Bhubaneswar and Patna.
Integrated cleaning contract will be awarded through tendering process. Stepping up efforts to improve passenger amenities, Railways will set up about 70 base kitchens to provide better catering service at rail premises. As many as 5670 complaints were received by Railways from passengers regarding unhygienic conditions, cockroaches, non-functioning of lights, fans and other electrical equipment and catering services including substandard food during April 2012-October 2014.
In order to prevent malpractices in Railway examinations, Prabhu decided that railway recruitment exams will henceforth will be online. The government has opened up 100 per cent FDI in more areas in rail sector to woo investment.
Besides, high speed trains, dedicated freight corridors and suburban trains, FDI was opened in trail cleanliness, setting up laundry service and installing bio-toilets also. Bio-toilets remain a focused area for Railways with more and more coaches having these environment-friendly toilets.
Railways recently introduced Wi-Fi service at New Delhi station to provide hassle free connectivity. The facility is to be launched on a trial basis at Agra, Ahmedabad and Varanasi soon and also at Howrah, Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus and Secunderabad.
