CAG report tabled in Parliament: ‘Punctuality declining, trains taking more time’
The report pointed out that when compared to other countries, the Indian Railways has the most lenient benchmark of measuring punctuality.
An audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) found that amid little improvement in average speeds, travel time of trains has increased over the past few years, and that overall...
more... punctuality of trains has declined.
“Even with a low benchmark and higher threshold, the punctuality of mail/express trains over IR declined from 79 per cent (2012-13) to 69.23 per cent (2018-19) that too at the terminating stations only,” a report tabled in Parliament on Wednesday said.
The report pointed out that when compared to other countries, the Indian Railways has the most lenient benchmark of measuring punctuality. A train delayed by up to 15 minutes is considered to have been punctual, whereas in countries like the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia and others, the threshold is much stricter.
The report said: “Indian Railways, despite investing Rs 2.5 lakh crore on track infrastructure during 2008-19, has failed to improve on the mobility outcomes. Mission Raftaar introduced in 2016-17 targeted an average speed of 50 kmph for mail/express and 75 kmph for freight trains by 2021-22. The average observed speed of mail/express and freight trains until 2019-20 was, however, still around 50.6 kmph and 23.6 kmph, respectively.” It also said that for 123 out of 478 superfast trains ran at slower speeds than the specified 55 kmph.
“Six main internal critical factors contributing 66 per cent of total detention of trains were identified as controllable. Indian Railways has no guaranteed delivery time for goods consignment…due to non-scheduling of goods trains operation,” it said.