SWR employees' 'Messiah' Ajay Kumar Singh all set to retire tomorrow

There will be some moist-eyed staff, especially Group-D employees, at South Western Railway (SWR) headquarters on March 31 as their ‘Messiah’, SWR General Manager Ajay Kumar Singh, retires from the office.

After completing a successful tenure of two-and-half years, where the SWR scaled new heights, including putting its’ name into the Limca Book of records for completion of an underpass at Londa in Belagavi district in record time, Singh is retiring on superannuation.

The eighth general manager of SWR is very popular among his staff for his 'lead by example' approach and keeping open his office doors open for all the staff to pour-in their grief. Even on Tuesday, which was his penultimate day at the office, there were hundreds of employees standing outside his office either to get their work done or felicitate him for finding a solution to their problems. Of the 36,000 odd employees of different grades working in SWR, Singh is said to have personally interacted with 11,000 employees, especially the trackmen, gang men, sweepers and others, at their workplace and resolved their issues.

Prabhu, an office-bearer of the Group-D employees' union, said for many of us he was like a God. In spite of being the topmost officer at the SWR, his doors were open for us, he listened to our problem and in genuine cases he solved them.

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Speaking to media persons at his office on Tuesday, Singh said in any organisation there are 80% of fence-sitters, 10% of good-men and 10% rotten eggs. If the top boss succeeds in ensuring assurance of standing with good employees, his work strength grows by 9 times. “That is what I did here. The bad employees were put to their place, even terminated if their crimes were proved. I used Saam Daam, Dand, Bhed, where ever it was required to implement the project,” he said.

Apart from his staff management, Singh’s project implementation has also won his praises from elected representatives and the public in general.

It was during his tenure that non-consequential accidents in SWR reduced to 5 in 2021 compared to 13 in 2018. None of those accidents were major, said SWR chief public relations officer E Vijaya.

SWR also improved its punctuality from 16th position in 2018 to 4th position among the 17 zones of the Indian Railway in 2021. SWR has achieved 96 per cent punctuality in last two years, she said. In the last five years, SWR has removed 1,300 unmanned railway crossing, majority of which were completed during Singh’s tenure. It has also built 112 subways and 12 roads over bridges in its jurisdiction, she said.

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Doubling and commissioning of new railway line also saw a record in last two years as 363 km of laying of the track was completed. Earlier, on average, 20kms of doubling or new railway lines were laid. However, during this year alone 207 km works were completed. In terms of electrification, SWR has completed 636 km route, double of what it had achieved till 2018.

In the last two years, 26 pairs of new trains were introduced.

SWR became the first zone in the country to provide free WiFi connection to passengers at all its stations.

Hubballi railway station also added three more platforms, including one of the world’s longest platform, which was completed in record time. Bengaluru added another terminal (Sir M Visveswaraya terminal), the country’s only fully centralised AC terminal during his tenure. “This will reduce train congestion at KSR and Yeshwantpur railway stations and also help in adding new trains from Bengaluru,” Vijaya said and added that in spite of pandemic, SWR is running the highest number of express passenger trains (61 pairs) in the country.