The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has blamed the sorry state of the railway infrastructure for the constant delay in train timings. The financial year 2018 has been recorded as the worst punctuality performance of the Indian railways in last three years. Official data shows that around 30 percent of the trains ran late in the 2017-18 period.
During April 2017 and March 2018, the punctuality of mail and express trains stood at 71.39 percent as opposed to 76.69 percent in 2016-17, registering a drop of 5.30 percent.
The latest report of the CAG, which was presented in the Parliament, stated that there is a serious drawback in the government's Rs. 1 lakh crore station redevelopment plans. The report has highlighted the shortage of space for trains on the station which is the major cause for the delays.
The report that was tabled in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, read: "The station development/redevelopment plans mainly address on facilities for the passengers on the station premises and facade of stations only and not on removing constraints and bottlenecks for ensuring timely arrival and departure of trains to/from the stations, which should be one of the most important parameters of the quality of service is provided to the passengers."
The CAG report studied 15 railway stations across the country with maximum traffic, including Allahabad, Kanpur, Mathura, Mughalsarai, Chennai Central, Howrah, Bhopal, Ahmedabad and New Delhi railway stations.
CAG affirmed that the unavailability of the platform has led to passenger trains getting late on an average of about 15 to 25 minutes. From almost all these selected stations, passenger trains started late by more than 15 minutes and even went upto 74 minutes, expect in Bhopal, Ahmedabad and Chennai Central.
CAG also pointed out that washing and stabling lines at the stations were too small to handle trains as its capacity couldn't handle trains bigger than 24 coaches. Washing and stabling in some of the cases directly affected the punctuality.
