CAG red-flags Railways for excess wagons, compromising safety norms
By Our Special Correspondent
New Delhi, April 8: While move is afoot to pause the acquisition of wagons from the private sector, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) had raised the red-flag to blatant violations of norms in acquisition of the wagons beyond the requirements. The CAG in its report tabled in Parliament had also slammed the Railways for allowing almost 41 per cent of the wagon stocks into the system after repair work without the NCO approval, thus compromising the safety norms.
The CAG also slammed the Railways for the train running record, saying that “analysis of FOIS (freight operations information system) data for years 2016-17 to 2020-21 revealed that halt time was close to half of the total travel time and hence the average speed was also close to half of the average speed without halt time”.
“More than 3.30 lakh wagons constituting 41 per cent of total were passed locally (without NCO approval) after being repaired at workshops/terminal yards, compromising safety,” stated the CAG in its report on the Railways.
The top auditor of the country also stated that “in violation of the Codal provisions Zonal Railways did not participate in the assessment of requirement of wagons or send proposals or justification for acquisition of wagons to Railway Board (RB)”. “In absence of any input from the zones, RB kept on changing requirement of wagons. Available Wagon holding was more than the wagon requirement, as assessed in audit on the basis of
Wagon Utilization norm (NTKM), throughout the review period. Supply of wagons by wagon manufacturers was not commensurate with allotment of wagons made by the Railway Board and there were huge delays in supply,” added the CAG report.
It also underlined that rakes were cancelled by parties due to non-supply by Railway Administration resulting in loss of potential earnings. “There were instances of detention of rakes in the selected loading and unloading points/terminal yards which resulted in loss of wagon days and their earning capacity. In around 69 per cent wagons abnormal delay was noted in connecting the unconnected wagons resulting in loss of earning capacity of wagons for the time taken for connecting those Wagons,” said the CAG.
The CAG also said that the audit noticed that in respect of six tenders finalized by the Railway Board during the period from 2016-17 to 2020-21, cost of wheels and axles consumed and destroyed in testing was included in the total supplies made to the Railways instead of supplying free of charge by the manufactures. “This was in contravention to the provisions of the standard specifications of RDSO and led to loss to the tune of ₹ 5.88 crore. In another case, placing orders for a specification of the axle other than requirement of the end user resulted in procurement of additional 3,400 units of axles resulting into avoidable expenditure of ₹ 18.01 crore,” added the CAG.
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