Ministry of Railways21-July, 2017 16:06 IST
Railway Zones and Divisions in The Country
At present there are 17 Railway Zones and 68 Divisions in the country. The details are given below:
S.NO.
RAILWAY ZONES
Headquarter
DIVISIONS
1.
Central Railway
Mumbai
Mumbai (CST), Bhusawal, Nagpur, Solapur, Pune.
2.
Eastern Railway
Kolkata
Asansol, Howrah, Malda, Sealdah.
3.
East Central Railway
Hajipur
Danapur,Dhanbad,Mughalsarai, Samastipur,Sonpur.
4.
East Coast Railway
Bhubaneswar
Khurda Road, Sambalpur, Waltair.
5.
Northern Railway
New Delhi
Ambala, Delhi, Lucknow, Moradabad, Ferozpur.
6.
North Central Railway
Allahabad
Allahabad, Agra, Jhansi.
7.
North Eastern Railway
Gorakhpur
Lucknow,Izzatnager,Varanasi.
8.
Northeast Frontier Railway
Guwahati
Katihar, Alipurduar, Rangiya, Lumding, Tinsukia.
9.
North Western Railway
Jaipur
Ajmer, Bikaner, Jaipur, Jodhpur.
10.
Southern Railway
Chennai
Chennai, Madurai, Palghat, Trichy, Trivandrum, Salem.
11.
South Central Railway
Secunderabad
Guntakal, Guntur, Hyderabad, Nanded,Secunderabad,Vijayawada.
12.
South Eastern Railway
Kolkata
Adra,Chakradharpur, Kharagpur, Ranchi.
13.
South East Central Railway
Bilaspur
Bilaspur, Nagpur, Raipur
14.
South Western Railway
Hubli
Bangalore, Hubli, Mysore
15.
Western Railway
Mumbai
Mumbai(Central),Vadodara, Ratlam,Ahmedabad,Rajkot, Bhavnagar.
16.
West Central Railway
Jabalpur
Bhopal, Jabalpur, Kota.
17.
Metro Railway
Kolkata
Not applicable.
Zonal and Divisional boundaries are decided by operational/administrative requirements and not on considerations of State boundaries and as such there are some States which have railway lines under jurisdictional control of more than one Zonal Railway/Division.
This Press Release is based on the information given by the Minister of State for Railways Shri Rajen Gohain in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha on 21.07.2017 (Friday).
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Ministry of Railways
21-July, 2017 16:05 IST
Dedicated Freight Corridors
Ministry of Railways have sanctioned implementation of Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFCs), namely, Western DFC (1504 km) and Eastern DFC (1856 km).
The commissioning of Western and Eastern DFCs (excluding few sections) is targeted in phases by 2019/2020.
Western DFC covers Dadri-Rewari-Phulera-Ajmer-Marwar- Palanpur - Ahmedabad –Vadodara - Surat- Valsad-Vasai Road and Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT), Mumbai through the States of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra. Eastern DFC covers Ludhiana-Ambala-Saharanpur-Meerut-Khurja-Kanpur-Allahabad-Mughalsarai-Sonnagar through the States of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
The revised Cost Estimate of the Western DFC and Eastern DFC (excluding construction cost of Sonnagar-Dankuni to be implemented through Public Private Partnership) is ` 81,459 crore( Western DFC - ` 51,101 crore & Eastern DFC - ` 30,358 crore).
The funding of the project is through World Bank loan ( US $ 2.725 billion) for the Eastern DFC , and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) loan ( ` 38,722 crore) for the Western DFC and the rest from Gross Budgetary Support (GBS).
This Press Release is based on the information given by the Minister of State for Railways Shri Rajen Gohain in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha on 21.07.2017 (Friday).
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Ministry of Railways
21-July, 2017 16:05 IST
Increasing the Speed of Trains
While appraising the two projects at estimated cost of 18,163 crore for Raising of speed to 160/200 kilometer per hour on existing corridors of Delhi-Mumbai (including Vadodara-Ahmedabad) and Delhi-Howrah(including Kanpur-Lucknow), in June 2017, NITI Aayog has supported the proposal. The project details are as under:-
(i) New Delhi-Mumbai Route (including Vadodara-Ahmedabad) covering 1483 Route km at an estimated cost of 11,189 crore.
(ii) New Delhi-Howrah route (including Kanpur-Lucknow) covering 1525 Route kms at an estimated cost of 6974 crore.
Signalling system and safety improvement measures on the entire route of Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah include inter-alia provision of clamp type point Machines in the facing direction of train movement, elimination of level crossing gates, Interlocking and track circuit changes in connection with closure of Level crossing gates, end to end fencing, Train Protection and Warning System (TPWS) and Mobile Train Radio Communication system (MTRC).
This Press Release is based on the information given by the Minister of State for Railways Shri Rajen Gohain in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha on 21.07.2017 (Friday).
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Ministry of Railways
21-July, 2017 16:04 IST
Modernization of Railway Network
Ministry of Railways have planned an investment of ₹ 8.56 lakh crore over five years ( 2015-2019) as indicated in the Rail Budget 2015-2016. Under the investment plan, major areas of priority include Network Decongestion/ Expansion, Safety related works, rolling stock procurement, station development works, modernization, speed raising , signalling, traffic facility works, information technology and customer service improvement etc.
A Fund, namely, ‘Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh (RRSK)’ has been introduced in 2017-2018 for financing critical safety related works. The Fund has been created with a corpus of ` 1 lakh crore over a period of five years.
This Press Release is based on the information given by the Minister of State for Railways Shri Rajen Gohain in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha on 21.07.2017 (Friday).
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Ministry of Railways
21-July, 2017 16:03 IST
Utilisation of Vacant Railway Land
The vacant land is leased/licensed for generation of non-tariff revenue for development of ancillary logistic support/infrastructure required for Railways operational needs such as bulk oil installations & oil depots, steel yards, concrete sleeper plants, coal dumps, connectivity to private sidings commercial plots, vending stalls, etc. The vacant land, which is not required by Railways for its immediate operational needs, is also utilized in the interim period for commercial development through Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA), wherever feasible, in order to mobilize additional financial resources.
Railways has also planned to utilize vacant Railway land where commercial development is not feasible for Railways’ captive energy sources, such as solar/wind energy.
Commercial development of Railway land is undertaken through open competitive bidding. Any one fulfilling the eligibility criteria and other terms & conditions as stipulated in bid document can participate. However, for production of (solar/wind) energy, “Railway Energy Management Corporation Limited” (REMCL), a Railways’ owned corporate, has been involved.
This Press Release is based on the information given by the Minister of State for Railways Shri Rajen Gohain in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha on 21.07.2017 (Friday).
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Ministry of Railways
21-July, 2017 16:03 IST
Option of Alternate Choice to Waitlisted Ticket Holders
With a view to providing confirmed accommodation to waitlisted passengers and also to ensure optimal utilisation of available accommodation, a scheme known as “Alternate Train Accommodation” (ATAS) known as “VIKALP” was introduced as a pilot project in November, 2015. This scheme has been expanded to cover all type of train on all sectors from 01.04.2017. To avail this facility the passenger has to give an option at the time of booking of ticket. Passengers with waiting list status at the time of preparation of reservation charts are shifted to opted alternate trains, subject to availability of vacant accommodation.
With a view to assessing the demand pattern, waiting list of trains is monitored on regular basis and to cater to additional rush during peak periods, special trains are run and load of existing trains are augmented subject to operational feasibility. This scheme will supplement the existing procedure and ensure passenger satisfaction.
The overall utilisation (end to end) of reserved accommodation on Indian Railways during the financial year 2016-17 was more than 100%.
This Press Release is based on the information given by the Minister of State for Railways Shri Rajen Gohain in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha on 21.07.2017 (Friday).
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Ministry of Railways
21-July, 2017 12:43 IST
Minister of Railways Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu Inaugurates Round Table Conference Ensuring Cyber Security on Indian Railways
Minister of Railways Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu inaugurated Round Table Conference on “Ensuring Cyber Security on Indian Railways”. Chairman, Railway Board, Shri A. K. Mital and other Railway Board Members and senior officials were also present on the occasion.
Speaking on the occasion, Minister of Railways Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu said that Indian Railways is striding ahead on its mission of transformation. A lot of upgradation, modernisation & maintenance of Railways has been taken up in last three years & these processes involve use of technologies. Indian Railways has recently launched Rail Cloud Server, Rail Saarthi App, work for developing E.R.P. is also underway. With the exhaustive use of technologies, there are high chances of vulnerability. Indian Railways keeps conducting audits to ensure safety checks. Cyber Security is one of the top priorities. Therefore, idea of this roundtable is to bring all stakeholders on one platform to ensure that these discussions becomes effective results for cyber security.
During the discussions, ideas were exchanged on Cyber threats, Security incidents and Advanced solutions. The discussions helped in understanding the issues involved and create better awareness among all stakeholders. It also helped to provide effective solutions to deal with the Cyber Security threats to IT Systems on Indian Railways.
Computerisation on Indian Railways started about 3 decades ago and major activities like Ticketing, Freight operations, Train operations and Asset management now rely heavily on IT Systems. Cyber Security on Indian Railway has now been identified as the focus area. Auditing of IT Systems by Standardisation Testing and Quality Certification (STQC) and close coordination with CERT-In are some of the steps taken by Indian railways.
Cyber Security measures must be implemented as per acceptable standards in the IT industry. This would entail creating best practices for protection of key infrastructure from cyber attacks, an emergency response system to cyber-attacks to reduce the application’s vulnerability to such threats, formulation of the policy / mechanism for ensuring adequate measures in the main areas of the Mission Critical IT application’s security, such as Access control, Confidentiality – denial of access to unauthorized person, pen / flash drives etc., Data loss / theft, Integrity – protection against unauthorized changes, Authentication – establishing the identity of actual user among other things.
In an increasingly digitized mode of working, there are many such applications that are accessed through personal devices like the mobile phone. Security features of such applications need to be strengthened. Apart from this,
readiness to defend critical digital assets of Indian Railway and preparedness to counter breach by designing the applications so robust so as to assess and strengthen the ability to detect, react to, and contain advanced attacks with speed, efficiency, and scale. With this preparedness, IT applications across Indian Railways can be confidently utilized to quickly catch attackers and prevent breaches from turning into catastrophes.
Although, IT applications of Indian Railway have been developed with adequate security features based on these standard principles the recent global cyber attacks in may 2017 show that we can never be complacent .The “WannaCry” ransomware attack affected more than 200,000 organizations in 150 countries. A report by
CBS News said that the estimated losses due to the ransomware attack were around $4 billion.
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