Railways' 2-day chintan shivir to discuss improved efficiency

The Indian Railways will hold a two-day brainstorming session or 'chintan shivir' from Thursday to mull over ways to improve efficiency of the national transporter.

Discussions will be centred around measures to better the operations, efforts needed to achieve a train speed of 150 km per hour on half of the routes and commissioning 10,000 km of tracks per year.

Senior railway officers are also expected to deliberate on and propose solutions to persistent problems encountered during day-to-day operations, an official aware of the plan told ET.

In addition to this exercise, the railways has also decided to form a briefing committee for each tender worth above ₹10,000 crore to better assess bids in these significant contracts. "This committee will assist the tender committee," a senior railway ministry official told ET.

This committee will be engaged in complex tenders for contracts spanning over five years, and also in those that have long-term high impact on the railways. It will be tasked with tabulating bidder responsiveness, bid criteria and bid security as per the tender document.

"The role of this committee will also be to highlight any special conditions, if quoted by each bidder, and any other relevant information submitted in the bid," the official said, adding that the committee will also flag any deviations between the tender conditions and offers made by the bidders.