New Delhi, Oct 28: Expressing concern over the fall in railway revenue, Railway Minister Nitish Kumar today suggested decentralisation of decision-making process both at the administrative and financial levels to improve its services. Inaugurating a two-day conference of General Managers of 16 zones, Kolkata Metro and six railway production units here, Kumar said the decentralisation process would improve productivity in the form of punctuality of trains, efficiency, safety, increase in revenue and timely completion of projects. Touching upon safety, he asked the authorities to improve punctuality, cleanliness and safety as these three factors determine efficiency of rail services. In the area of safety, particularly in the context of law and order and terrorist threat to rail operations, Kumar asked the General Managers to coordinate with state authorities to ensure safety of rail services.
Emphasising on procuring standard safety-related items and making it uniform on all Indian Railways for improving safety, the Railway Minister also asked them to standardise the mechanism of transparency and openness in tenders and work to make tenders free from the influence of mafia.

Bureau Report