Railway zones not meeting safety targets won’t get any awards: Minister

NEW DELHI: Railway zones failing to meet safety targets will not get any award even if they have performed better on other parameters, railway minister Ashiwni Vaishnaw said on Friday while stressing that safety remains the main focus of the national transporter.

Speaking at the annual railway award ceremony, Vaishnaw said this year a zone was not even considered for any award as it did not perform well in safety-related issues. “Next time, three zones won’t qualify to for any award only for this reason. For us, safety remains the main focus area,” he said, adding that taking updates from the director general of safety at the Railway Board is his first task every morning.

He asked all zonal heads (general managers) and divisional railway managers for daily monitoring at all levels and act on suggestions given by officials dealing with safety-related issues. There must be “uncompromising focus on safety”, with the aim of dramatically reducing consequential accidents through better training, technology deployment, disciplined operations, and monitoring at all levels of leadership, Vaishnaw said.

He also asked the senior railway bureaucracy to be open to new ideas and suggestions from all staff irrespective of their ranks. He said employees will be able to put their ideas on a web portal for technology change, which will be launched soon, and have the option to make such suggestions while maintaining anonymity.

Listing out priorities, he said there will be a decisive push for systemic reforms, with time-bound changes across customer service, maintenance, production, quality and health systems, driven by accountability and execution in railways during this year. He also said that there will be focus on deep and widespread adoption of technology, innovation, and artificial intelligence, including new-generation rolling stock, advanced track systems, modern signalling, and smarter maintenance practices to improve reliability and productivity.

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