Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu on Monday asked various departments under the Railway Board to work towards cutting costs in the backdrop of the financial burden imposed bythe Seventh Pay Commission.
The Minister was speaking at a conference here after inaugurating the online track management scheme, track management systems (TMS) mobile application and track store inventory management.
Lauding the move of the engineering department, Prabhu said, “There can be competition between various departments to cut costs. Each of the departments — Engineering, Mechanical, Electrical, Staff — can think of ways to cut costs.”
Track maintenance involves generation of over one lakh file and registers that are spread across various locations of the railways. All these computer-based and mobile apps have been developed by CRIS, the IT arm of Indian Railways. Over 5,000 engineers can now do track maintenance with the use of this technology.
By adopting online track maintenance system, the Northern Railways has saved ₹117.6 crore, indicating the potential savings that can be achieved by implementing the scheme across the network.
Minister of State Manoj Sinha said the Railways would implement online tendering of all bids to make the process more transparent. Almost ₹30,000-crore worth of civil contracts are awarded by the Railways annually.