Rail staff globe-trotting to improve track record

Rail staff globe-trotting to improve track record
27 Aug, 2007, 0223 hrs IST,Ashish Kumar Mishra & Surbhi Goel, TNN

NEW DELHI: Don’t have it in you? So what, learn it from the best around the globe. That seems to be the mantra at Rail Bhavan. Taking a cue from railway minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, four batches of second-rung Indian Railways (IR) officials have been globe-trotting to countries like South Africa, Japan and Australia to study the developed rail systems. This approach is different from the earlier practice that used to see only top officials making such trips.

A lot of the these changes have got to do with the ambitious projects being conceived by IR, like the Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC), high-speed trains along with the increased need of modernisation and overhauling of the rickety infrastructure.

A handful of officers have just returned from Japan, after a thorough learning experience from the dedicated freight routes in the country, another trip to South Africa has been scheduled for September, 2007.

“Though a time frame of five years has been fixed for the fruition of the DFC project, the railway board has ramped up its activities and many railway officers and executive directors (ED) are being sent abroad to take lessons from the established routes of DFC in those countries,” said a senior Rail Bhavan official, who requested anonymity.

Moreover, to develop competency, a global training programme is being formulated by IR, according to which, officers of the rank of general managers, divisional railway managers and even a rung below AMPs will be be sent on a training program for two weeks, twice a year. There are almost 14,000 officers in IR.

However, the exact details of the training program is being worked out. Already, a batch of officers have made trips to business schools in Singapore and Malaysia. “This is a welcome decision which will broaden the vision of officers and enable them to come up with new ideas,” says IIM Ahmedabad faculty G Raghuram.