Coal and Railway Minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday said the Indian Railways will completely phase out diesel locomotives in the next five years and will switch to electric locomotives with the focus on increasing speed.

“We have planned to switch all trains to be electric-driven in the next five years,” Mr Goyal said, addressing the National Executive Council members of FICCI.

By phasing out diesel locomotives, the Railways will save about Rs. 11,500 crore annually, he said. “The diesel locomotives will be used for back up purposes in the yards.”

Stressing on the safety of passengers, the railway minister also said that he has directed the railway officials to speed up the production of the Linke-Hofmann-Busch (LHB) coaches instead of relying on the Integrated Coach Factory (ICF) coaches.

“We are promoting LHB type coaches as they are more safer as compared to the ICF coaches,” he said, adding that June 2018 will be the last month for the ICF coaches to be manufactured.

“I have also asked the rail coach factories to develop the LHB coaches and also asked the Rae Bareli coach factory to double up its production, as it currently has the capacity to build 1,000 coaches annually.”

Mr Goyal said that he had also spoken to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to allot 200 acres more land for the expansion of the Rae Bareli coach factory.

He also defined his tenure in the last 77 days as the Railways Minister as a “good learning experience”. “I got a chance to take a number of policy decisions here.”

He said he has taken upward 600 policy decisions on policy matters of the Railways.

For safety of passengers also we have approved 372 escalators in Mumbai suburban alone and we will have close to 3,000 escalators being set up in the Railways across the country,” Mr Goyal said.

He assured the industry that there is no fund shortage for safety-related items in the Railways.

Around 1,500 farmers, who were headed for Kota, are now stuck at an unfamiliar Madhya Pradesh railway station after their train travelled 160 kilometres in the wrong direction. Now, the railway authorities don’t know what to do with them.

The farmers were returning to Rajasthan and Maharashtra after attending the Kisan Yatra protest rally in Delhi’s Jantar Mantar on Monday. The special train that was arranged from Maharashtra for the thousands of protesting farmers took a wrong route and left these 1494 farmers stranded in Madhya Pradesh’s Banmore station near Gwalior.

According to sources, the railway authorities gave a wrong signal to the train at the Mathura station, which led to the train landing up in Madhya Pradesh instead of Maharashtra.

“We left Delhi at 10pm on Tuesday and woke up at 6am to find ourselves at Banmore railway station in Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh. After Agra, we had to move towards Kota in Rajasthan, however, due to serious negligence by the Railways, we are now in in MP,” passenger Mahavir Patil told News18.

When News18 spoke to one of the stranded passengers who was headed for Kohlapur, he said they have been delayed by 5-6 hours.

As the passengers approached the station master for information, he pleaded ignorance about the route plan and declined to give them a green signal. After a delay of over one and half hour, the passengers then ran out of patience and created a ruckus by stopping a goods train.

Passenger S Madanaike said, “When we spoke to the driver, he said there was a wrong signal at the Mathura railway station which caused this goof up. It looks like we will only reach by Thursday morning.”

After skipping summonses six times, former Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi is expected to appear before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Patna tomorrow in connection with a railway hotels allotment corruption case, official sources said today.

Rabri Devi, the wife of RJD chief Lalu Prasad, is expected to meet the investigating officer (IO) of the money laundering case at the ED zonal office in Bihar’s capital and record her statement.

Lalu Prasad was the railway minister in the UPA-I government.

She has skipped appearing before the agency at least six times in the past and it is understood that the central probe agency allowed her request to be questioned in Patna and not in Delhi, where the criminal case has been registered.

The ED has earlier questioned Rabri Devi’s son Tejashwi Yadav, the former deputy chief minister of Bihar, twice in this case.

In July, the agency registered a case against Lalu Prasad, his family members and others under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

Just before this, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered a criminal first information report and conducted multiple searches on the properties of Lalu Prasad and others.

The CBI FIR alleged that Lalu Prasad, during his tenure as the railway minister in the UPA-I, handed over the maintenance of two Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation hotels to a company in 2004 after receiving a bribe in the form of a prime land in Patna through a ‘benami’ company owned by Sarla Gupta, wife of Prem Chand Gupta, a former Union minister.

The ED registered the criminal case against his family members and others under the PMLA, based on this CBI FIR.

The CBI has already recorded the statements of Tejashwi and Lalu Prasad in this case.

The ED is investigating the alleged “proceeds of crime” generated by the accused, purportedly through shell companies, according to the officials.

Others named in the CBI FIR include Vijay Kochhar, Vinay Kochhar (both directors of Sujata Hotels), Delight Marketing company, now known as Lara Projects, and the then IRCTC managing director P K Goel.

The CBI FIR was registered on July 5 in connection with favours allegedly extended to Sujata Hotels in awarding a contract for the upkeep of the hotels in Ranchi and Puri and receiving premium land as “quid pro quo”.

A clause in India’s global tender for steel rails, part of a $130 billion overhaul of its railways, could help Jindal Steel and Power Ltd win up to 20 percent of the work, sources said.

The world’s fourth-largest rail system is undergoing a five-year overhaul to replace ageing tracks, improve efficiency and end a spate of deadly train accidents.

State-run Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) has struggled to supply the steel, however, and is expected to deliver 920,000 tonnes of it this financial year, just 65 percent of its target.

Global steelmakers such as ArcelorMittal and Thyssenkrupp could bid, as could Jindal Steel and Power, India’s only private producer of the steel.

India’s steel ministry has objected to the tender, pointing out that preference should be given to local suppliers in support of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s drive to boost manufacturing.

Indian Railways officials have also expressed concern that JSPL lacks experience building rails, three people with knowledge of the conversations told Reuters this month.

A senior Railways official said any decision for the tender would depend on competitive bidding, which opens next month.

‘DEVELOPMENTAL’ CLAUSE

However, Indian Railways is considering using a clause in the Oct. 18 tender that allows for a “developmental” or a trial order of up to 20 percent of the steel to be awarded to a domestic manufacturer, four officials with direct knowledge of the proposal said.

It can award that work even if the bidder “does not have proven performance of supply of rails”, according to the tender.

JSPL, which says it has supplied 150,000 tonnes of rail to Iran since 2016, did not respond to a request for immediate comment.

The railways ministry is likely to make a decision within two weeks and is keen to award work to JSPL in light of the government’s policy on local producers, two officials with knowledge of the discussions told Reuters.

The ministry did not respond to a request for immediate comment.

Increasing train speed up to 200 km per hour on the Delhi-Chandigarh route will cost Rs 11,000 crore ($1.7 billion), a study conducted by French railway said.

The 245km Delhi-Chandigarh corridor, one of the busiest routes in north India, is slated to be the first semi-high speed project being taken up by the state-owned transporter to run trains at maximum speeds of 200 kmph with French help.

The 1,700-page detailed report submitted by the French railway (SNCF) will be taken up for finalisation in Indian Railways on Monday for preparing tendering documents and drawing out an action plan as a way forward.

The railways will sign a MoU with SNCF next year expanding the scope of cooperation in the rail sector, including training of drivers of semi-high speed trains and safety and security of train networks.

The total travel time between the two cities is expected to be reduced to 2 hours and 2 minutes with two stoppages at Panipat and Ambala, according to the report.

Currently, the Shatabdi Express covers the distance in about three hours and 30 minutes travelling at a maximum speed of 110 kmh.

SNCF has submitted the execution strategy and implementation model with detailed project cost involving an upgrade of the route with details of cost analysis and technical parameters.

The report has pegged the total estimated cost at Rs 11,218 crore, which includes the cost of signals upgrade, main civil works and rolling stock among others.

Senior officials from both sides will examine the report and a final cost will be decided after the discussion on Monday, said a senior Railway Ministry official.

There will be re-alignment as there are about 20 major curves spanning over 32.7 km on the existing Delhi-Chandigarh rail route. However, there will be no acquisition of fresh land for the re-alignment as it will be done within the Railways right of way.

Beside Delhi-Chandigarh, there will be upgrades of seven more routes totalling about 4,000 km, including Mumbai-Goa, Chennai-Hyderabad, Mysuru-Chennai, Delhi-Kanpur and Nagpur-Secunderabad.

Owing to onset of fog, the North Eastern Railways (NER) has suspended eight trains from December 1 to February 13, an official said on Monday.

These trains include the Agra Intercity, 12179 Lucknow Junction-Agra Cantt Express, 15209 Saharsa-Amritsar Express, 14674 Amritsar-Jainagar Shaheed Express and Lucknow-Anand Vihar Express.

NER Chief Public Relations Officer (CPRO) Sanjay Yadav said that the cancellation of the trains has been done due to foggy weather.

Some trains have also been partially cancelled. These include Gwalior-Barauni Express, which will terminate at the Lucknow junction and would also start from here only.

Jainagar-New Delhi Express, Azamgarh-Delhi Kaifiyat Express, Barauni-Ambala Hariharnath Express will remain suspended on every Thursday between December 1 to February 13.

The Jainagar-Amritsar Express will not ply on Friday of every week between December 1-February 13. The cancellations of train is likely to hurt the daily commuters the most.

In a significant move, Indian Railways did a makeover of the Rajdhani Express, introducing ‘Swarna’ Coaches to its passengers. Initially, the new set up has been made available in the Sealdah-New Delhi Rajdhani Express.

The Ministry of Railways on Wednesday took to Twitter and announced the new upgradation. “Ministry of Railways launched 1ST Swarna Rajdhani ( Train no 12314 New Delhi- Sealdah Rajdhani) rake today. A Major Leap in Improving Passenger Experience on Rajdhani Trains:14 Rajdhani Trains and 15 Shatabdi Trains will be upgraded under Project Swarna,” read the tweet.

Earlier in the month, Indian Railways had announced that the passengers of Rajdhani and Shatabdi would get text messages on their mobile phones if their scheduled trains get delayed by more than an hour.

Railways made the much-needed facility operational for all Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains, said a senior Railway Ministry official involved with the project, adding that the SMS facility would be extended to other trains too in a phased manner.

In a bid to promote digital payments, the Indian Railways on Thursday said it will bring UPI (Unified Payments Interface) payment system at all its ticket reservation counters across the country from Friday.

“We are going to roll out UPI-based payment system at all reservation counters across the country,” Railway Board Member (Traffic) Mohammad Jamshed said in New Delhi.

He said the system will currently be launched only for reserved tickets.

He said over 97 percent of the tickets sold at Passenger Reservation System (PRS) counters daily are through cash and only two-three percent of transactions at the reservation counters are through debit or credit cards.

According to railway officials, about 7.5 lakh tickets are booked daily. Five lakh tickets are booked at PRS counters.

“Now a passenger does not have to carry his credit/ debit card, as they will be able to book it through BHIM app through a mobile phone,” Jamshed said.

He said the Railways is working to develop Bharat QR code option for booking tickets “Once it’s completed, passengers just need to scan the QR code to make payments,” the official said.

The Railways earns around Rs. 110 crores daily by selling reserved tickets – Rs. 80 crores from e-ticketing and Rs. 30 crores from tickets sold at reservation counters.

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