Indian Railway: The Changing Picture Of A Changing India

Our country full of diversity is unique. Here, there has been a rich tradition of looking at things from a different perspective. For us, Ganga and Godavari are not just the names of rivers, they are synonymous with the mother who gives life. Music is not just a means of giving pleasure to the ears, it is a means of practicing music. Similarly, for us countrymen, Indian Railways is not just a train equipped with an engine and a dozen and a half coaches, it is a bridge connecting the emotional relationships of our workers, farmers, soldiers and crores of citizens who earn their livelihood away from home with their families and loved ones. Our trains do not just run on the tracks laid from East to West and North to South - the feelings of relationships pass through them. Indian Railways, which has the diversity of the great country of India in its heart, is also a representative of the Government of India, and a symbol of the aspirations of the countrymen!

These aspirations are put to the test every year during the festive season, when millions of countrymen living away from their families return to their homes. After a year of hard work in the anonymity-filled life of the metropolises, these hardworking people set out in a huge group to travel by train with the desire to meet their loved ones. The numbers are so huge that if you have never worked in that environment, you will be terrified on seeing them. And, if it is about the crowds that pour in during festivals and special days, then just running the trains is not enough. You also have to make adequate arrangements for the smooth stay of the people who come to the railway station, buying tickets, refreshments, etc. For this, apart from railway officials and employees, support is also received from voluntary organizations. The Indian Railway Administration has decades of experience in helping millions of passengers reach their destinations, but now all efforts are being made to gradually make this experience pleasant.

If this topic is ever discussed with foreign guests, they are left speechless. Many friends who have knowledge of traffic management are surprised to hear that during the festivals, the railways operated 7,700 special trains in addition to one lakh seventy thousand train trips. Now take the example of Udhna, an industrial city located near Surat - an average of seven to eight thousand passengers travel through its railway station every day - on November 4, a crowd of more than forty thousand gathered at this small station. If the railway administration had not made proper arrangements by working as a team, it would have been difficult to even imagine the troubles of the passengers. During the festival, the maximum traffic in the country was from New Delhi station. During this period, 64 special and 19 unreserved trains were operated in a day from this station alone on the demand of passengers.

When rail travel during festivals was discussed in a gathering of foreign guests, a diplomat was stunned to hear that this year alone, on 4 November, before the great festival of Chhath, about 3 crore people travelled to their destinations by train, and during the festival days the railways helped about 25 crore passengers to travel. The concerned diplomat, with a slight smile, said that more people than the total population of Pakistan travelled in your trains in just a few days!

Indian Railways realises that our brothers and sisters from the eastern parts of the country, who are working in large numbers in industrial centres, have an important role in the development of the country. From the Atal Tunnel in Jammu to the Sea Link in Mumbai, and from the IT establishments in Bengaluru to the buildings under construction in Delhi, everything has been built by the people of the soil of the east. Be it the soldiers of the army or the Border Security Force posted on the borders of the country, the labourers growing crops in the fields of Punjab, the employees serving in government offices and private institutions, the elderly, or the students studying in the prestigious educational institutions of the country, all of them are shaping the India of today and tomorrow in their own ways.

Indian Railways has also embarked on a new and world-class journey by continuously expanding trains like Vande Bharat, Amrit Bharat, Namo Bharat equipped with modern technology and facilities and by converting more than a thousand railway stations across the country into Amrit stations. The changing picture of the changing India has now started emerging in the form of Indian Railways.

About The Author: Writer Jaya Verma Sinha is the first woman Chairman and CEO (Retired) of Indian Railways