Indian Railways completes historic passenger outreach programme

Shri Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India has outlined a vision for fast tracking the country’s economic growth based on the intrin- sic strength, capabilities and potential of its people. The Prime Minister and his team of ministers arrived at the centre stage at a time when the entire growth sentiment based itself on a rather clichéd sustainability model, which more or less ensured, if anything — a certain stagnation in various important sectors of the economy. It was a task cut out and an unprecedented challenge to envisage a higher growth path with an attempt to take the long overdue “great leap forward”. With the “business as usual” approach in both actions and thinking across bureaucracy, industry and services, it was time to convert “rhetoric” into “reality”. A lot was required to be done across departments, sectors and enterprises. The growth output in many important sectors had to be dou- the future. Indian Railways was not very different.

Policy reforms, initiatives and improved business sentiments in the country during the last one year resulted in a robust growth output in terms of GDP for 2014-15 and is now poised towards further improvements during 2015-16.

The Prime Minister rightly mentioned in one of his addresses that Railways was always considered “only as mode of transport in our country, we want to see Railways as a backbone of Indian economic development”. This statement has to be seen in perspective of the much needed growth required in the core sectors of the economy, especially energy and transportation to provide the impetus to the desired growth trajectory.

Indian Railways, which is one of the most important core sectors of the economy, is the third largest railway network under single management with over 66,000 route km. It carries over 23 million passengers along