Piyush Goyal urged the leaders of the federations to ponder on how the railways can overcome the crisis looming across the world due to the pandemic, according to a statement issued by the railway ministry.

Railway Minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday sought crowdsourcing of ideas from railway employees for boosting profitability and bringing transformational changes in the national transporter.

The move comes in the backdrop of huge losses incurred by the railways due to suspension of passenger train services amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The national transporter is also in the process of finalising various cost-cutting measures to bring down its expenses.

Addressing an online ‘Workman Sanghosti” in which representatives of railway workers unions across the country participated, Goyal asked the general managers to seek ideas from the workforce in their respective regions.

He urged the leaders of the federations to ponder on how the railways can overcome the crisis looming across the world due to the pandemic, according to a statement issued by the railway ministry.

He asked them to come up with unique ideas to boost railways revenue, minimise costs and improve its freight share.

“The hearts of railway employees beat for the organisation. They would be having ideas which can boost the profitability of railways,” Mr Goyal said.

Addressing the Sanghosti, Suresh Angadi, Minister of State of Railways, said the Indian Railways has never stopped in the last 167 years, but it was stopped due to the pandemic. He also congratulated the staff for working as “warriors” in the current times.

Earlier, Anand Khati, Director General, Human Resources, Railway Board said the national transporter has more than 12.18 lakh employees on roll, out of which, 1.21 lakh employees have been recruited recently.

He said the process of recruitment for 1.40 lakh vacancies has been initiated.

The office bearers of various railway federations also highlighted the work done by the employees during the challenging times amid the pandemic, in the online interaction, the statement added.