Mission Raftaar of Indian Railways

News:Minister of Railways has informed the Lok Sabha about the Mission Raftaar.

Facts:

About Mission Raftaar:

• Mission Raftaar of Indian Railways was announced in the Railway Budget 2016-17.  
• The mission envisages a target of doubling of average speed of freight trains and increasing the average speed of all non-suburban passenger trains by 25 kmph in the next 5 years.

Significance of the mission:

• The mission has helped the trains to reduce travel time for passengers, transit time for cargo, reduce operational cost, improve revenues and railway’s market share.

Additional information:

Other missions of Indian Railways:

Mission 25 Tonne: 

• It aims to increase revenue of Railways by augmenting the carrying capacity.

Mission Zero Accident: It comprises of two sub missions

• Elimination of unmanned level crossings: The goal is to eliminate all unmanned level crossings on Broad Gauge in the next 3-4 years through innovative financing mechanisms.It will reduce deaths due to accidents and improve throughput of the network
• TCAS (Train Collision Avoidance System): An indigenous technology has been developed to equip 100% of the High Density Network with TCAS in the next 3 years.This will prevent head on collisions and improve throughput by increasing average sectional speeds.

Mission PACE (Procurement and Consumption Efficiency): 

• This mission aims to improve our procurement and consumption practices to improve the quality of goods and services. 
• It will introduce a culture of optimum usage by adopting practices such as Vendor Managed Inventory, new procedures for identification and disposal of scrap among others.

Mission Hundred: 

• This mission will commission at least a hundred sidings in the next 2 years. 
• The current siding/ PFT policy would be revised to elicit greater private participation. An online portal will be operated for accepting and processing all new applications, alongwith decentralization of powers.

Mission beyond book-keeping: 

• The mission will establish an accounting system where outcomes can be tracked to inputs. 
• This will transform IR as right accounting would determine right costing and hence right pricing and right outcomes.

Mission Capacity Utilisation: 

• The mission proposes to prepare a blueprint for making full use of the huge new capacity that will be created through two Dedicated Freight Corridors between Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Kolkata scheduled to be commissioned by 2019.