CORE office to close down soon, zonal rlys to see electrification works
PRAYAGRAJ: : The office of the Central Organisation for Railway Electrification (CORE), located in Sangam city, is all set to close down in coming months. The decision has been taken following the recommendation of principal economic advisor of the union ministry of finance, Sanjeev Sanyal, who has suggested that in place of CORE, all the zonal railways of the Indian Railways (IR) could invite tenders for further electrification works of tracks under their respective zones instead.
While recommending winding up of the all-important office of CORE, which is the headquarters looking after the electrification work of railway tracks panIndia, Sanyal has pointed out that that ‘CORE was established with the prime objective of electrification of railway tracks.
“Once the annual estimate of electrification of track is provided by respective zones, the tender of electrification projects can be issued through approved engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts. The monitoring of physical progress of electrification is also being done by zones and this alleviates the need for a separate organisation such as CORE,” he said.
A letter, containing the recommendations, has been sent to Railway Board by deputy secretary, cabinet secretariat, C Chandrashekhar for compliance and which, in turn, has sent the same to all zonal railways of Indian Railways, including Prayagrajheadquartered North Central Railway (NCR).
“We have recommended that CORE should be wound up. All future tendering may be handled by zonal railway through approved EPC contracts, also the existing contracts managed by CORE can be handed over to zonal railways.
IR has already electrified over 71% of broad-gauge railway tracks as on March 31, 2021 and it plans to fully electrify its track by
December 2023,” say the recommendations in the letter, a copy of which is with HT.
Railway Electrification, as an organization, was set up in 1961, with mandate to electrify Indian Railway tracks. The unit initially based at Kolkata was called PORE (Project office for Railway Electrification). However, owing to growing emphasis on electrification, a separate unit called Central Organization for Railway Electrification (CORE) was set up in 1971; with headquarters at Prayagraj (then Allahabad).
Since then, it has electrified 45,881 route kilometers (RKM) of the total broad-gauge network of IR (64,689 RKM, including Konkan Railway) by March 31, 2021.
Meanwhile, chief public relation officer of CORE, Amitabh Sharma said, “Although we have not received any such letter but CORE will abide by the instructions given by the Railway Board.”
General Secretary of North Central Railway Workers Union, Manoj Pandey expressed his anger against the privatisation of railways. “There is a conspiracy to shut down CORE and RRBs and in such situation, a mass movement would be initiated across the country,” he said