Indian Railways Junction

IRCTC to launch India's first luxury cruise liner from September 18; check details

In a tie-up with Cordelia Cruises, a private company, it will begin the first cruise from September 18 for which bookings can be done on the IRCTC website IRCTC Tourism Official Website | Incredible India Travel & Tour Package.

MONEYCONTROL NEWS
SEPTEMBER 09, 2021 / 08:33 AM IST
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The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) will start India's first indigenous cruise liner from September 18, the railway PSU said.

In a tie-up with Cordelia Cruises, a private company, it will begin the first cruise from September 18 for which bookings can be done on the IRCTC website http://www.irctctourism.com.

"IRCTC has joined hands and signed the agreement with Cordelia Cruises being operated by M/s Waterways Leisure Tourism Pvt. Ltd for promotion and marketing of the first indigenous luxury cruise in India. This is another incredible luxury travel offering under IRCTC's umbrella of tourism services to the public," the railway PSU said in a statement.

"Cordelia Cruises is India's premium cruise liner. It aspires to promote and drive the cruise culture in India through experiences that are stylish, luxurious, and most importantly, inherently Indian. It is a cruise liner for Indians catering to the way Indians love to holiday," it said.

IRCTC said guests onboard the ship will have an experience of sailing to some of the best Indian and international destinations like Goa, Diu, Lakshadweep, Kochi, and Sri Lanka.

Cordelia Cruises is starting its first journey from September 18 and in its first phase will sail through Indian destinations with its base at Mumbai, while later from May 2022 the cruise will be shifted to Chennai and set sail to destinations in Sri Lanka like Colombo, Galle, Trincomalee, and Jaffna.

Some of the popular tour itineraries of Cordelia Cruises are Mumbai-Goa-Mumbai, Mumbai-Diu-Mumbai, Mumbai-At sea-Mumbai, Kochi-Lakshadweep At sea Mumbai, Mumbai At sea Lakshadweep At sea Mumbai among others.

"While travelling on Cordelia Cruises, one can enjoy lot of recreational and leisure activities such as restaurants, swimming pool, bars, open cinemas, theatre, kids area, gymnasium," the statement said.

As per COVID-19 protocol, crew members are fully vaccinated and daily health checks for the crew members, hourly sanitisation of the facilities, air-filtration and social distancing norms would also be followed.

The number of guests will also be limited according to the official mandate by the government.

There is also a fully functional medical centre onboard the cruise equipped with all the required medical essential items.

Besides the luxury cruises in India, IRCTC is also in the process of signing agreements with all major international cruise liners and will provide their bookings on its web portal as soon as the COVID-19 situation normalises and the international cruises start their operations.

(With PTI inputs)

IRCTC To Launch India's First Luxury Cruise Liner From September 18; Check Details
 
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Centre pushes Railways to reform, merge RVNL & Ircon, Rail Tel & IRCTC​

The Cabinet Secretariat has asked the Ministry of Railways to act upon a series of recommendations including a merger of Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd into IRCON, of Rail Tel into IRCTC, and a takeover of Braithwaite & Co Ltd by RITES.

These proposals are part of a report on rationalisation of government bodies prepared by Sanjeev Sanyal, Principal Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance, after studying the structure and distribution of Railways ministry.
The proposals are wide ranging, and not restricted to PSUs: bringing 94 schools run by Railways under the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sanghatan (KVS), upgrading 125 Railway Hospitals — most of them under-invested — through an institutional mechanism and opening these to the public at large. Wherever appropriate, it suggests a PPP (public-private partnership) model for schools and hospitals run by the Railways. This will help the organisation focus on its core competence of running and maintaining the railway service.

In a recent note sent to the Railways, the Cabinet Secretariat has asked Suneet Sharma, Chairman and CEO, Railway Board, to update it on the actions taken on the recommendations in the first week of every month.

When contacted, a senior Railway Ministry official told The Indian Express, the report had been handed over to them just a week ago. “It has now been sent to all key departments… all these require serious discussion with all members of the Railway Board,” said the official, who did not wish to be named.

On consolidation of PSUs, Sanyal’s report stated that both IRCON – a specialised infrastructure construction company, and RVNL which implements projects to create and augment rail infrastructure capacity on a fast-track basis, have similar business functions. Hence, it has said RVNL can be merged into IRCON.

Highlighting the overlaps between Rail Tel, a large telecom infra provider through optic fibre networks along railway tracks, IRCTC, a mini ratna, whose core activity is internet ticketing, and CRIS, an autonomous society to develop software for passenger ticketing, freight invoicing, passenger train operations, etc, the report recommended that CRIS be wound up after handing over its work to IRCTC, and then Rail Tel be merged into IRCTC.

The report called for setting up a new public sector enterprise to hold the three coach factories in Chennai, Kapurthala and Rae-Bareli, locomotive units in Chittaranjan, Varanasi and Patiala, and two rail wheel units in Yelahanka (Bengaluru) and Bela in Bihar. All the assets may be transferred to this CPSE, and employees deployed to the proposed enterprise in a phased manner.
Between Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA), a statutory organisation with complete powers of station development, land monetisation and contract management, and Indian Railway Stations Development Corporation Ltd, a joint venture between RLDA and IRCON, the Sanyal report said one should be identified as a sole functioning entity and given full responsibility.

The report also recommends that the Railways Board and the Ministry of Railways pull out of direct involvement in Indian Railway Welfare Organisation, a society set to provide housing to serving and retired employees. IRWO be treated as a privately run body. Both the board and the ministry must work at an arm’s length from IRWO, it said.

An officer, who did not wish to be identified, said many of these PSUs and bodies existed simply because they served as a parking space for officers who wished to be retained in a certain city or region. Another officer explained that in many of these societies, companies might have had an objective at some point of time, but their creation was also a result of departmentalism within the railways.
 
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Railways planning major restructuring​

The Indian Railways, the country’s largest employer and transporter, is heading for a major restructuring plan that could lead to the closure of major establishments, merger of decades-old organisations and private participation in running of its schools and hospitals.

The recommendations of the Principal Economic Adviser Sanjeev Sanyal for Rationalisation of Government Bodies and Proposal for the Ministry of Railways calls for winding up the Central Organisation for Railway Electrification (CORE), the Central Organisation for Modernisation Of Workshops (COFMOW), Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) and Indian Railways Organisation for Alternative Fuel (already closed on September 7, 2021).

While senior railway officials were of the view that the recommendations would be taken up for further discussion, the closure of the IROAF has sent out a signal that the proposal could be implemented partly or wholly in due course of time. Last week, the Cabinet Secretariat, Rashtrapati Bhavan, wrote to the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Railway Board, calling for monthly reports to intimate the action taken on the rationalisation plan, official sources told The Hindu on Friday.

In what could be a major coming together of organisations working on the Information Technology platform, the panel recommended winding up of CRIS, an autonomous society that develops software capacity in the railways that includes passenger ticketing, freight invoicing, passenger train operations, management of train crew and management of fixed/rolling assets, and handing over all its work to the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC).

Going by the plan, RailTel, one of the largest telecom infrastructure providers in the country that focuses on modernising operations and safety systems through optic fibre networks that exist along railway tracks, would be merged with IRCTC. It has been proposed for the Rail India Technical and Economic Service (RITES) that exports rolling stock to take over Braithwaite & Co Ltd., (BCL) which turned sick in 1992, the sources said.

Among other recommendations were the merger of Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL), which implements projects relating to creation and augmentation of railway infrastructure, with the Indian Railway Construction Limited (IRCON), a specialised infrastructure construction organisation. The panel said both RVNL and IRCON had similar functions and hence could be merged.

Merger of schools​

The Principal Economic Adviser recommended merger of railway schools with Kendriya Vidyalayas or handing them over to the respective State Governments since “operating the railway schools takes up a large amount of time of the railway management whose core competence is in running and maintaining the railway service”.

Justifying the move, the proposal noted that of the 7.99 lakh children of railway employees in the 4-18 age group, less than 2% were enrolled in railway schools. As of 2019, of the total 33,212 students enrolled in 94 schools, only 15,399 were railway wards.

Factories under CPSE​

Another major reform recommended was to establish Central Public Sector Enterprises to bring eight production units under its fold. This would mean that the assets, infrastructure and employees of three coach factories — Integral Coach Factory, Chennai; Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala; Modern Coach Factory, Rae-Bareli; three locomotive manufacturing units – Chittaranjan Locomotive Works, Chittaranjan; Diesel Locomotive Works, Varanasi; Diesel Loco Modernisation Works, Patiala and two Rail Wheel Units at Yelahanka (Bengaluru) and Bela (Bihar), would be transferred to the proposed CPSE.

Merger of Central Training Institutes with the National Rail and Transportation Institute after upgrading the latter into a Central University and an Institute of National Importance, roping in private participation for investments to enhance healthcare facilities open to all in the 125 railway hospitals and 586 health units/polyclinics was also proposed, the sources added.
 
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Finance to upgrade, World Bank offers plan for Railway expansion

The World Bank top brass shared its vision for the Railways and what it proposes at a presentation to Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and other top brass last week.

Written by Avishek G Dastidar | New Delhi | Updated: September 26, 2021; 7:26:44 AM
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Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw

The World Bank has outlined the role it can play as India looks to fund its ambitious National Rail Plan over the next 30 years, which envisages almost 8,000 km of high-speed corridors and another 8,000 km of dedicated freight corridors (DFCs), involving funds to the tune of Rs 40 lakh crore.


The World Bank top brass shared its vision for the Railways and what it proposes at a presentation to Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and other top brass last week.

The National Rail Plan and the National Infrastructure Pipeline recommend a total of 13 bullet-train corridors across India, including the under-construction Mumbai-Ahmedabad one. They are on routes like Mumbai-Nagpur, Hyderabad-Bengaluru, Varanasi-Patna, Patna-Kolkata, Delhi-Udaipur, Delhi-Chandigarh-Amritsar, Nagpur-Varanasi, Amritsar-Pathankot-Jammu, Chennai-Mysuru via Bengaluru, Mumbai-Hyderabad, and Varanasi-Delhi via Ayodhya. However, there is no clarity on how to fund them, or the new DFCs.

The Bank has offered its expertise starting from handholding execution of partnership with private players, to development of intermodal stations and upgrading of existing lines. “Aim to build 8000 km of DFC and 8,000 km of High Speed Railway in 30 years. How to pay for it?” the presentation poses, offering “World Bank interventions” as a solution.

The presentation, seen by The Sunday Express, foresees “open access” in future DFCs, and within three years, commercial financing of the country’s freight infrastructure, through “asset recycling”, “bond issuance” etc. In passenger services, the Bank proposes PPP partnership in developing new high-speed routes as well as the commuter rail network. A World Bank India spokesperson did not respond to queries regarding the meeting.

Once developed, the commuter networks will attract higher-income passengers, the Bank notes, while there would be a rise by 20% in traffic being carried on freight corridors. According to the presentation, together the measures would reduce Indian Railways share of infrastructure ownership costs by $6.5 billion, and ultimately help the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation Limited to finance the expansion of its network.

Currently, the 508-km high-speed railway line from Mumbai to Ahmedabad is being laid with loan from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), while around 3,000 km of two DFCs are being constructed with aid from the World Bank in the eastern part of India and from JICA in the west.

As part of national commitment to carbon reduction, the share of Railways in freight must increase from the current 27% to 45% by 2030. Officials noted that investment from private sector and financial institutions is key to the success of the plan, and the World Bank’s pitch is being viewed in that context.

Sources also pointed out that things would ultimately boil down to specific numbers regarding how much the World Bank is willing to fund. “Global financial institutions have a limit regarding the exposure they can have in one sector, in a country or even a region,” an official said.

Finance to upgrade, World Bank offers plan for Railway expansion
 
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Finance to upgrade, World Bank offers plan for Railway expansion

The World Bank top brass shared its vision for the Railways and what it proposes at a presentation to Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and other top brass last week.

Written by Avishek G Dastidar | New Delhi | Updated: September 26, 2021; 7:26:44 AM
View attachment 21239
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw

The World Bank has outlined the role it can play as India looks to fund its ambitious National Rail Plan over the next 30 years, which envisages almost 8,000 km of high-speed corridors and another 8,000 km of dedicated freight corridors (DFCs), involving funds to the tune of Rs 40 lakh crore.


The World Bank top brass shared its vision for the Railways and what it proposes at a presentation to Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and other top brass last week.

The National Rail Plan and the National Infrastructure Pipeline recommend a total of 13 bullet-train corridors across India, including the under-construction Mumbai-Ahmedabad one. They are on routes like Mumbai-Nagpur, Hyderabad-Bengaluru, Varanasi-Patna, Patna-Kolkata, Delhi-Udaipur, Delhi-Chandigarh-Amritsar, Nagpur-Varanasi, Amritsar-Pathankot-Jammu, Chennai-Mysuru via Bengaluru, Mumbai-Hyderabad, and Varanasi-Delhi via Ayodhya. However, there is no clarity on how to fund them, or the new DFCs.

The Bank has offered its expertise starting from handholding execution of partnership with private players, to development of intermodal stations and upgrading of existing lines. “Aim to build 8000 km of DFC and 8,000 km of High Speed Railway in 30 years. How to pay for it?” the presentation poses, offering “World Bank interventions” as a solution.


The presentation, seen by The Sunday Express, foresees “open access” in future DFCs, and within three years, commercial financing of the country’s freight infrastructure, through “asset recycling”, “bond issuance” etc. In passenger services, the Bank proposes PPP partnership in developing new high-speed routes as well as the commuter rail network. A World Bank India spokesperson did not respond to queries regarding the meeting.

Once developed, the commuter networks will attract higher-income passengers, the Bank notes, while there would be a rise by 20% in traffic being carried on freight corridors. According to the presentation, together the measures would reduce Indian Railways share of infrastructure ownership costs by $6.5 billion, and ultimately help the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation Limited to finance the expansion of its network.

Currently, the 508-km high-speed railway line from Mumbai to Ahmedabad is being laid with loan from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), while around 3,000 km of two DFCs are being constructed with aid from the World Bank in the eastern part of India and from JICA in the west.

As part of national commitment to carbon reduction, the share of Railways in freight must increase from the current 27% to 45% by 2030. Officials noted that investment from private sector and financial institutions is key to the success of the plan, and the World Bank’s pitch is being viewed in that context.

Sources also pointed out that things would ultimately boil down to specific numbers regarding how much the World Bank is willing to fund. “Global financial institutions have a limit regarding the exposure they can have in one sector, in a country or even a region,” an official said.

Finance to upgrade, World Bank offers plan for Railway expansion

They should present this plan to the Finance Ministry

They will decide the Viability of this plan

Railways dont earn much profits

So All their Capital Intensive projects such as DFC , Bullet Train and NEW LOCOMOTIVES are funded or Underwritten by Finance Ministry
 
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Boost to Rail Electrification over High Density Network in North East Region

Railways complete electrification work of total 649 Route Kilometers from Katihar to Guwahati over Northeast Frontier Railway. Traction change at New Jalpaiguri, New Coochbehar to be done away with, enhancing mobility of the trains

Posted On: 11 OCT 2021 12:13PM by PIB Delhi

Indian Railways has embarked upon an ambition plan of electrification of its complete Broad Gauge network by 2023-24 which would not only result in a better fuel energy usage resulting in increased throughput, reduced fuel expenditure but also savings in precious foreign exchange.

In this series, Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) has successfully completed the Electrification work of total 649 Route Kilometer (RKM)/ 1294 Tonne Kilometer (TKM) of High-Density Network (HDN) from Katihar to Guwahati. This great feat will now connect all major cities of the country with Guwahati on seamless Electric Traction. This is yet another effort by NFR for capital connectivity by Green Transportation.

The final leg of HDN on NF Railway of 107 RKM/273 TKM was successfully inspected by Commission of Railway Safety (CRS) NF circle from 7th Oct to 9th Oct 2021. In addition to this, passenger trains with higher speed & heavier goods trains can be run.

Apart from saving foreign exchange reserves spent on HSD Oil and providing greener transportation in north east, railway electrification up to Guwahati shall lead to likely saving of foreign exchange spent on HSD Oil of about Rs 300 Cr per annum. HSD Oil consumption will reduce by about 3400 KL per month. Due to seamless train operation, traction change at New Jalpaiguri, New Coochbehar will now be done away with, enhancing mobility of the trains. Running time between Guwahati to Katihar / Malda Town is likely to reduce by up to 2 hours as trains can now move at higher speed due to better acceleration/ deceleration. Line capacity enhancement of up to 10-15% shall lead to reducing level of saturation on many of the sections on the NF Railway allowing more coaching trains to run.

With Electrification heavier goods trains can be run at higher speed. NF Railway has difficult terrain with a large number of graded sections, curves, bridges. Electric traction shall eliminate need for multi diesel locos as higher HP electric engines can maintain higher speed in gradient section. Additional Rajdhani express trains can now be introduced for NE states like Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Sikkim.

Electrification of this section shall improve operational efficiency and shall lead to large saving on fuel for power cars (About Rs 10 Cr on the electrified route itself). 15 pairs of existing trains originating/terminating at KYQ/GHY can run with an additional passenger coach by eliminating one power car, thus improving passenger throughput. Electrification will lead to better maintenance as faster trains shall lead to more time for maintenance blocks.

 
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