On 2nd July 2020, The Indian Railways announced that it achieved 100% punctuality of trains. It is the first time that this milestone has been accomplished.
Earlier, the record was 99.54% on 23rd June when one train got delayed.
Last month, the railways communicated to all its zones to ensure 100% punctuality to run 230 special trains. That figure is 2% of the overall network of 13,000 trains that are generally scheduled.
All general managers and divisional railway managers were messaged by the Railway Board Chairman V K Yadav to ensure that 100 pairs of passenger trains and 15 pairs of Rajdhani special trains maintain their schedule without delays. It was expressed that since the number of trains being run on the network is currently small, the punctuality has to be 100%.
This milestone comes a day after the railways formally kickstarted its plans to allow private entities to operate passenger trains on its network. It has already invited requests for qualifications (RFQ) for participation on 109 pairs of routes through 151 modern trains.
An amount of about Rs 30,000 crore is estimated from a private sector investment. Through a transparent bidding process, private entities shall pay the Indian Railways for fixed haulage charges, energy charges as per actual consumption, and a share in gross revenue.
It would be the first initiative from private investment for running passenger trains on the Indian Railways network. Last year, the private venture was involved by the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) for introducing the Lucknow-Delhi Tejas Express.
IRCTC currently operates three trains – the Kashi Mahakal Express on the Varanasi-Indore route, the Lucknow-New Delhi Tejas, and the Ahmedabad-Mumbai Tejas.
The operation will have to conform to key performance indicators like punctuality, reliability, and trains’ upkeep.
