MT’s message for IRTS officers

Dear Colleagues,



          I take this occasion to wish all of you and your families my good wishes for a prosperous and happy 2010.Calenders and clocks help not only in giving an identity to something as abstract as time, they also provide a frame work to set targets and goals to people who are on the go. Thus the turn of the year, decade or century, or even month, week and day gives us an opportunity to review our past achievements and set realistic goals for the future.

          As the Managers of train operations and commercial activities on Indian Railways, there are high expectations from us from not only by our organisation but from also the general public, who may not be aware of us, yet our decisions touch their lives in thousands of ways. At the start of the new calendar year let us be sensitive and proactive towards these expectations and contribute our bit to improve the system and be a step ahead by anticipating demands and requirements.

          Indian Railways has a tradition more than 150 years old, where procedures have been laid down with a lot of common sense and wisdom at a time when technology was still in its nascent stage. This is why they still hold good. Through an evolution which first brought in big machines resplendent with brute force, later evolved into machines with high precision chip technology, but the wisdom of man continues to be supreme. Every time a man puts a new idea across he finds ten men who thought of it before he did - but they only thought of it. Imagination is everything. If we can imagine a future, we can create it, if we can create that future, others will live in it. That is the essence of success. Winners do not do different things they do the same things but differently. I would like you to keep an open mind, to generate new ideas and to promote lateral thinking.

          Here it would not be out of place for me to point out that the chief ingredient of building a good image for the railways is punctuality. All hard work and careful planning comes to a naught, if the passengers have to wait for their trains to take them to their desired destinations. In a country like ours where several factors are beyond our control, such as foggy winter in the north and flood ravaged areas in heavy monsoons, we have to be up to the mark to meet this challenge. These are known problem areas which have to be tackled year after year. True success lies in sorting out seemingly insurmountable problems.

          The area that we need to be more alert towards is the provision of passenger amenities. We have to see that these amenities are provided where they are actually required, visible and usable. It should not be an exercise to merely fulfilling requirements and providing justification on paper of a job done. Our interface with the passengers should improve and we should expedite earnings contracts to make our financial condition strong.

          As per the Vision 2020 Transport document released by the Planning Commission, the Railways had a market share of 88% of freight and 68% of the passenger business in land transport in 1950-51, this has come down to about 40% of freight and about 20% of passenger market share in 1999-2000 while road transport has moved from 12% to 60% in freight and from 32% to 80% in the passenger business in the same period. Over the years while rail freight traffic continued to increase yet at a slower pace, with continuous loss in the market share. As transporters of bulk traffic we must accept that this is not a good sign. The railways will remain the preferred mode for movement of goods over long distances provided we upgrade our efficiency parameters by reducing terminal detentions and improving wagon turn around.

          Even with a reduced market share, both in freight and passenger traffic, the demand for rail transport in 2020 is projected to be more than three times the level of freight tariff carried now and more than double of the passenger traffic. To cope with this massive increase, we may have to re-strategise several things for which a fresh approach and new ideas will be the new byword. We have to move out of our comfort zones, we have to innovate new marketing strategy and better pricing policy. I take this opportunity to convey to you that I will always be open to new ideas and suggestions. I am confident that with your commitment and support we shall be able to retain our existing traffic and move into the yet unexplored areas.

          While reviewing the performance of the Railways in the past five years through the White Paper issued by the Railway Board recently, we find that we have fallen short in certain core areas and have still not achieved the benchmarks of global standards. We are still far from optimizing the operational and efficiency parameters and unable to meet the additional demand generated by rapid economic growth.

          This review also indicated that there has been improvement in the safety record over last five years. The biggest contributor to accidents is the human element, which could either be railway staff or the public particularly at unmanned level crossing gates. I believe and I am sure that you will all agree that we have to bring accidents down to nil and keep it there by adopting safety procedures stringently. There should be no compromise made, nor tolerated when it comes to safety on railway premises and we should enforce this principle under all circumstances.

          In the end, I would like to say that success only about Vision. It is the ability to rise above the immediacy of pain. It is about imagination. It is about sensitivity to small people. It is about building inclusion. It is about connectedness to a larger world existence. It is about personal tenacity. It is about giving back more to life than you take out of it. It is about creating extra-ordinary success with ordinary lives.

          I once again convey my good wishes to you and your family and hope that we will make the most of the productive year that lies ahead of us. I wish you all success in your professional and personal lives.

          Jai Hind.



(Vivek Sahai)
Member Traffic, Railway Board
New Delhi
14.1.10


Posted on  Thursday, January 14, 2010