In a unique initiative, Minister of Railways, Piyush Goyal has sought crowdsourcing of ideas for boosting profitability as well as effecting transformational changes in Asia’s largest rail transporter from employees.
Commending the performance of railway employees during the coronavirus crisis, Goyal urged leaders of railway unions to ponder how the Railways can best overcome the challenges triggered by the pandemic. He asked railway unions to come up with new ideas on how the Railways’ revenue could be increased, costs minimised and freight share be improved.
Goyal said that as the heart of the Railways employees beat for the organisation they would have ideas to boost its profitability. The minister directed general managers and divisional railway managers to actively seek such suggestions from the employees and transmit the same to the ministry.
The minister was speaking at the first-ever online ‘Workman Sanghosti’ or seminar attended by representatives of Railways workers’ unions from across the country on Thursday. Other than the minister Suresh C. Angadi, Minister of State of Railways, VK Yadav, Chairman, Railway Board along with senior officers of Railway Board were also present on the occasion.
Also addressing the seminar, Angadi said that the operations of Railways had been affected for the first time in 167 years. He congratulated the staff for performing their duties like warriors. He expressed that in the future also the staff would work hard to make the Railways the best in the world.
Earlier, Dr. Aanand S. Khati, Director General, Human Resource, Railway Board informed that the Indian Railways has more than 1.2 million employees on its rolls. The Railways had recently recruited 121,000 employees recently, with the process of recruitment for another 140,000 vacancies also having been initiated.
The office-bearers of the Railway unions said the employees supported the Ministry of Railways’ mission for the modernisation of Indian Railways. Improvement of efficiency and financial health was not only in the best interest of employees but also of the nation. They said the railway employees were capable of taking any responsibility towards the same.