Rating of railway zones and divisions
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
MINISTRY OF RAILWAYS
RAJYA SABHA
QUESTION NO 2708
ANSWERED ON 04.01.2019
Rating of Railway Zones
2708 Shri V. Vijayasai Reddy
Will the Minister of RAILWAYS be pleased to state :-
(a) whether it is a fact that Railways have decided to give rating to its various zones;
(b) if so, the details of this move and parameters under which each zone is going to be assessed;
(c) whether it is also a fact that rating of its 16 zones was done by Railway Board between April and December, 2016;
(d) if so, the details of such rating, with particular reference to South Central Railway Zone; and
(e) the manner in which Railways are going to reward the performing zones?
ANSWER
MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF RAILWAYS (SHRI RAJEN GOHAIN)
(a) to (e): There is no existing practice to give ratings to various Railway zones. However, to further assign greater accountability to the Zonal Railways and also to ensure that decision making at field level gets expedited, Memorandum of Understanding (MOUs) are being signed between Secretary, Railway Board and General Managers of all the Zonal Railways separately, since 2016-17. Under these agreements, all the Zonal Railways, including South Central Railway, undertake to achieve the targets set in the MOU. Performance of Zonal Railways is evaluated through Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) mentioned in the MOU relating to operational and financial performance, capacity enhancement, capacity utilization and manpower. The MOU also entails self-assessment of performance by General Managers in respect of their zones on a monthly basis based on the performance indicators, highlighting areas of concern and corrective action planned to meet performance gaps.