In its report presented to Parliament on Friday, the Parliamentary standing committee on Railways said development and expansion of rail network had to be guided by national priority. Other factors also had to be considered, like the need to remove regional imbalances, besides other socio-economic factors.
The committee demanded that IR, in consultation with stake holders, finance ministry and planning commission, should draw a road map, indicating priority of different projects for the next 10-15 years.
It observed that new line projects had been largely funded by budgetary support from the Central exchequer.
Apart from funds for national projects and other important projects like mega bridges, the remaining part of budgetary support was earmarked for different plan heads on the basis of the allocation formula. As per the ideal criteria of allocation, it should need more than Rs 4000 crore annually to complete all the ongoing projects within a time-span of 5-6 years.
The panel demanded that IR should take steps to complete all the ongoing projects in 5-6 years.
It also noted that the pace of expansion of rail network had been “very tardy” in comparison to other world railways, particularly that of China. Substantiating its charge with statistics, it said during the last 54 years, IR could expand its network only from 53,596 route km in 1951 to 63,221 km with a growth rate of 0.33 per cent per annum.
The panel said, though IR made continuous efforts to expand its network, due to shifting priorities and ad-hoc policies, it could not make headway in its pursuit. IR’s emphasis, the committee pointed out, was mainly on the development and strengthening of the golden quadrilateral and diagonal routes. It also observed that projects taken up on socio-economic consideration had been given a low priority.
It observed that the IR had not drawn a perspective plan for the development and expansion of rail network in a holistic manner.
On the pending projects, it said the IR shelf contained 240 projects of new lines, gauge conversion, doubling, electrification and metropolitan transport projects.
Jobs on grounds of Compassion
New Delhi, DHNS: A parliamentary committee has supported the concept of “appointments on compassionate grounds” in the Union government.
The department-related parliamentary standing committee on personnel, public grievances, law and justice, said in its latest report that in a welfare state, it was obligatory on the part of the government to provide a social security net to the employees and that appointments on compassionate ground was one such measure.
The committee, which decided to examine this concept, opined that the power to make appointments on compassionate grounds may be conferred on the administrative heads of the departments/organisations so as to enable them to grant jobs to well-deserved cases alone.
It suggested that the Centre should consider this policy of appointment in the PSUs and other organisations falling within its jurisdiction.
Also, the PSUs should introduce a scheme of “full salary till superannuation of the deceased employee” uniformly on the lines of the policy being followed by the Chennai Petroleum Corporation “so that the bereaved family could tide over the crisis created by the cruel hands of destiny”.
The committee also recommended that the Centre should accept the revised proposal of the Indian Banks’ Association and start compassionate appointments in public sector banks with immediate effect.
