New Delhi (NVI): Indian Railways today said that it has achieved 100 per cent punctuality rate for the “first time in its history” on July 1. This means that no passenger trains were delayed among the 201 that were operated on this day.
The previous best, according to the Ministry of Railways was June 23, when only one train got delayed. Taking to Twitter, the Ministry said, “First time in the history, Indian Railways has achieved 100% Punctuality of trains on 01.07.2020. Previous best was 99.54% on 23/6/20 with only one train getting delayed.”
Union Railways Minister Piyush Goyal also tweeted,“Trains in the Fast Lane: Enhancing services to unprecedented levels, Indian Railways made history on 1st July, 2020 by achieving 100% punctuality rate.”
Notably, only a fraction of total trains are currently running due to the Covid-19 situation.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Indian Railways kick-started its plans to allow private entities to operate passenger trains on its network by inviting requests for qualifications (RFQ) for the operation of passenger train services on over 100 routes with 150 modern trains.
The project would generate a private sector investment of about Rs 30,000 crore.
Earlier, last week, the Railways cancelled all regular mail, express and passenger services as well as suburban trains till August 12, in the view of the pandemic.
Indian Railways has ferried 60 lakh migrant workers home since May 1 through Shramik Special trains and managed to recover only 15 per cent of operational cost.
-RJV/ARK
