National
Fund crunch derails creation of new rly. zones
By Vinay Kumar
NEW DELHI, JAN. 27. Though the decision to create seven new railway zones was taken in 1996-98 and Rs. 50 crores spent on it, the Railway Board has recently expressed the view that it was not in a position for expeditious action in formation of the zones owing to financial crunch.
In its meeting on November 13, the Board favoured setting up of a high-power committee of officials to review the priority and the time-frame in which formation of new zones and divisions has to be carried out. ``Priorities would have to be commensurate with requirements of operational efficiency and manpower management,'' the Board opined.
The creation of the new zones appears heading for a rough ride with the Prime Minister's Office asking for bringing the entire matter before Union Cabinet for a final decision and the Railway Minister ordering expeditious creation of new zones.
The Board deliberated on how it could implement the Railway Minister's decision and in the November 13 meeting pondered over financial position, recommendations of various committees including Railway Reforms Committee (RRC), operational discipline, CAG report, views of staff and federations.
The Board said that after the decision was taken to create new zones, the financial position of the railways has taken a severe beating. Recommendations of the RRC of 1984 were still far from being implemented from 1984-96 on account of financial stringency.
New zones would pose too many units for planning and decision-making of operations would neutralise the benefits from other improvements. The CAG report on Railways for 2001 had called for reconsideration of the decision to create more zones and divisions from the view of the financial viability and the standing committee of Parliament on Railway has also advocated a phased approach to the creation of new zones on the basis of workload and efficiency.
The Railway Convention Committee felt that the money wasted on creation of additional zones could have been utilised properly in areas like procurement of rolling stock, doubling and renewal of railway lines and electrification. The management cadres as well as staff federations have expressed themselves against the new zones and divisions, the RRC favoured creation of only four zonal railways and that too only one-by-one and the Rakesh Mohan committee has also considered the decision of the railways for additional zones to be that of dubious merit that would add substantial cost but add little value to the system.
The Board felt that upheaval in the areas of operating discipline, traffic accounts and staff matters that would be caused during formation of new zones would affect efficiency of the system adversely. It was observed that formation of a new zone or division would take more than 10 years to stabilise.
Jurisdiction problems of new zones may result in zones with two or three divisions only which would not be operationally viable and one-by-one approach would also cause public dissatisfaction in most of the areas.
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