“No question" of privatization of the Railways: Minister Piyush Goyal

New Delhi: Lok Sabha has passed the Demands for Grants under the control of the Ministry of Railways for 2019-20. Replying to a debate on the Demands for Grants, Railways Minister Piyush Goyal today assured the House that Railways will not be privatized.

Goyal said the government has accorded high priority to the safety of railway passengers. The Union Minister said the government has allocated over 5640 crore rupees for passenger safety for this year as against over 2100 crore rupees in 2009.

Finance Minister has announced that 50 lakh crore investments will be done in Railways, and that should be applauded. FM has said that this govt works with “NayiSoch, Nayi Disha.”

“We’ll spend 6 lakh crore in new projects for laying new lines in high-density networks where there are high capacity constraints. More DFCs - 4.5 lakh crore, Golden Quadrilateral - 1.5 lakh crore, The Government did a root cause analysis to know where Railway needs investment for the benefit of passengers. The Government decided to phase out all ICF coaches and replace it with LHB coaches to enhance safety, which needs investment,” said Minister Goyal during his speech at the Parliament.

In terms of safety, during NDA tenure average number of accidents per year was brought down to 95.6. During 2004-09 it was 206 and during 2009-14 it was 153.

Train Accident

“Lives lost in train accidents on average per year was around 300 in 2009-11 it came down to 50 now,” added Goyal.

Due to the 7th pay commission, 22,000 Cr additional spent on Salaries. Consequential Train accidents reduced from 118 in 2013-14 to 59 in 2018-19. For the first time train sets were made in India i.e ‘Vande Bharat Express’ Train has covered a distance of more than 1,00,000 km till now.

“The success story tells us there is a need to encourage and motivate our engineers (why competency was questioned due to minor glitches),” asserted Union Finance Minister.

Also, the target for fitting bio-toilets in all the trains was 2020-21. Till now we have fitted 2, 10,000 bio-toilets. In the next 12 months, the Government is targeting to fit more bio-toilets in all the train.

Around 457 escalators and 377 lifts were installed in the last 5 years. Minister Goyal also highlighted that during UPA I it was - 28 -Escalators, 19 lifts; and during UPA II it was 115 escalators and 78 lifts

Automatic data loggers have been integrated with the system installed to track the punctuality, by doing away with the age-old system of maula tracking of punctuality.

eDrishti website launched to monitor train status & delays, photos of every railway station, their beautification, cleanliness, etc

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