Bhubaneswar: East Coast Railway observed 74th Independence Day at Railway Stadium here Saturday.
Vidya Bhushan, general manager, unfurled the national flag while a parade was organised by Railway Protection Force (RPF).
In his speech, Vidya Bhushan highlighted the performance of ECoR and collective efforts by the Railway employees along with Passenger Amenities, Safety & Security, Expansion of Railway Network, Digital Initiatives and Human Resource.
Highlighting the performance of East Coast Railway, Vidya Bhushan congratulated the Railway employees for their dedication and untiring efforts for spectacular performance in last financial year.
He informed that ECoR in 2019-20 made history by becoming the first amongst 17 zones to load more than 200 MT of freight. ECoR also created history by becoming the first amongst 17 zones to achieve an Operating Ratio of 51.34%, posted the highest earnings of Rs.21,703 crores amongst all 17 zones. “We reduced our total working expenses by 2% to Rs.9098 crores compared to last year,” he added.
Informing about the achievements, the general manager also said that ECoR continued to pursue asset creation by electrification of 159 Rkm against target of 146 Rkm.
“ECoR commissioned 32 km of new lines by achieving 100% of our target with the addition of 82.28 km of double lines. ECoR has not surrendered any project funds this year by utilizing 102% of funds amounting to Rs.2550.62 crores for constructing new lines and double lines,” he added.
While speaking about the ECoR’s fight against the invisible enemy, he informed ECoR is the first zone to withdraw curtains and bedrolls from trains to prevent spread of infection, suspend bio-metric attendance and breath-analyser tests on loco pilots & guards, stopped sale of platform tickets to prevent overcrowding on platforms to minimize spread of infection.
“In order to protect passengers and staff on duty, ECoR accelerated procurement processes to build-up stocks of COVID-19 protective items like PPE suits, gloves, face masks, medicines, ventilators, medical consumables etc,” he said.
Informing about ECoR being the first zone to acquire Drug Controller’s licence to manufacture hand sanitizer, he said, “The market crisis of availability was gauged swiftly to manufacture items like hospital beds, trolleys, IV stands etc. Production of face masks and shields was swiftly started at multiple establishments.”
Besides this, ECoR decided to run fast parcel trains to move medicines, fruits, vegetables, eggs, poultry hatchlings and other essential commodities and also speeded up freight trains to carry food grain, POL products etc, he informed.
Shri Sudhir Kumar, Addl. General Manager and all officers, staff were present on the occasion.
PNN
