Punctuality of trains in SCR shows an upswing

Secunderabad: South Central Railway, one of the foremost zones in terms of punctuality performance on Indian Railways, has seen an upswing on this front in the last four years. 

The Zone which handles around 755 passenger carrying trains and 650 freight trains on an average each day, is critical to rail operations for Indian Railways, since SCRs network is the virtual gateway to the South of India from all other directions. 

Between 2014 and 17, the punctuality of mail/express trains was around 96 per cent. This resulted in a temporary lessening of punctuality to around 92% during the year, which is now again showing a gradual increase to reach the optimal best. 
 
Vinod Kumar Yadav, General Manager, South Central Railway has initiated a stringent monitoring mechanism to keep track of the train movements on the entire network, on a 24 x 7 basis. 

With safety on Indian Railways coming to the fore, Piyush Goyal, Minister of Railways has held the view that maintenance of tracks should be accorded top priority and works completed on a war footing. 
In addition, a huge thrust is being accorded by the rail ministry for undertaking construction of new railway lines, doubling/tripling of railway lines, electrification of the network and improvement to the rail infrastructure, so as to cater to the demands of the ever-increasing rail traffic. 

In the larger context, these maintenance, developmental and upgradation works have served the purpose of substantially enhancing safety standards all over SCR’s network to the optimal level of “Zero accident record” last year. 

To sustain this positive gain, the Operating department of the Zone is continuously undertaking punctuality drives, to identify and clear any visible short coming or bottle neck on this front.