Chennai: The Indian Railways is the fourth largest railway network in the world and is probably the largest railway system in the world under a single management, said Governor Banwarilal Purohit.
Participating at the 64th Railway Week celebrations at Integral Coach Factory here Tuesday, he said railwaymen run more than 20,000 passenger trains daily, on both long-distance and suburban routes, from 7,349 stations across India. In the freight segment, there are more than 9,200 freight trains that run daily.
In the last fiscal year alone the Railways served as the means of transportation for about 826 crore passengers and 116 crore tonnes of freight were handled with an enviable operating ratio of 98.4 per cent and an annual revenue of about 1.79 lakh crores. Hence there is no doubt that the Indian Railways is a proud asset of the Central Government and the nation, he said.
“An unique feature of Indian Railways is the large number of in-house production units which take care of the locomotive and rolling stock requirements. The Integral Coach Factory which was set up with Swiss collaboration in 1955 was the first production unit exclusively devoted to the production of coaches. Today, ICF is capable of producing more than 3,000 coaches per year and manufactures about 600 varieties of passenger coaches. Many of the recent products from ICF such as air conditioned Electrical Multiple Units, and underslung Mainline Electrical Multiple Units, are being widely adopted all over the railways thus proving ICF’s versatility,” the Governor said.
“The ICF has also exported more than 800 coaches to 17 countries and is presently fulfilling an order from Sri Lanka for the supply of 78 Diesel Electric Multiple Unit coaches,” he said.
“With the Indian economy in a state of heightened activity the future holds great promise for the Indian Railways who have a highly committed cadre of officers and employees, specialised in various branches of engineering and in matters of accounting and commercial and traffic expertise. The Railway Week serves as an occasion to honour officers of outstanding merit and performance and it is heartening to see that more than 200 employees have been recognised at the ICF for their hard work and sincerity,” the Governor said.