South central railways launches “one station one product” initiative

South central railways launches “one station one product” initiative

What is the news :

• The South-Central Railway (SCR) has launched the “One station One Product” initiative at 6 major stations in all its six divisions.
• An initiative aimed at making the railway stations a sales and promotional hub for local products has been launched across six major stations over South Central Railway (SCR).

About “One station One Product” initiative :

• Encouraged by the response to the pilot project at a Station in Tirupati, it has now been launched for the first time at Secunderabad and Kacheguda stations in Hyderabad apart from Vijayawada, Guntur, and Aurangabad Stations.
• At Secunderabad railway station, Hyderabadi freshwater pearl jewellery and bangles are being sold while at Kacheguda station Pochampally handlooms and textiles have been put up for sale. Stalls are located in the prime passenger interface area for enhanced visibility.
• Being a first-time initiative, it is being implemented for a duration of 30 days starting from Saturday. The project which is already under implementation at Tirupati has now been extended for another 30 days as well.

• The “One station One Product” concept was announced in the union budget 2022-23. Under this, railway stations that witness huge footfalls are envisaged to act as marketing channels to promote the local products, thereby giving a major boost to the livelihood and welfare of local artisans, potters, weavers, and tribals, etc.
• Accordingly, all the six Divisions of South Central Railway have identified one major station over their jurisdiction to implement this unique initiative. To execute the project, applications were called from locals, artisans, traders, etc interested in promoting local indigenous products.
• The local artisans will have a good opportunity to showcase their products and thereby expand the reach of their products.
• Railway stations are well suitable to promote indigenous products which are famous in the surrounding areas of the nominated stations.

Railway Zones and Divisions in The Country  (17 Railway Zones and 68 Divisions)

S.NO.	RAILWAY ZONES	Headquarter
1.	Central Railway	Mumbai
2.	Eastern Railway	Kolkata
3.	East Central Railway	Hajipur
4.	East Coast Railway	Bhubaneswar
5.	Northern Railway	New Delhi
6.	North Central Railway	Allahabad
7.	North Eastern Railway	Gorakhpur
8.	Northeast Frontier Railway	Guwahati
9.	North Western Railway	Jaipur
10.	Southern  Railway	Chennai
11.	South Central Railway	Secunderabad
12.	South Eastern Railway	Kolkata
13.	South East Central Railway	Bilaspur
14.	South Western Railway	Hubli
15.	Western Railway	Mumbai
16.	West  Central  Railway	Jabalpur
17.	Metro Railway	Kolkata

Recent news related to railways :

Union Minister Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw inspects the trial of KAVACH System

• Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister of Railways, Communication and Electronics & Information Technology inspected the trial of ‘Kavach’ working system between Gullaguda-Chitgidda Railway stations on Lingampalli-Vikarabad section in Secunderabad Division of South Central Railway.

KAVACH

• The KAVACH is an indigenously developed ATP system by Research Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO) in collaboration with Indian industry and trials facilitated by South Central Railway to achieve the corporate objective of safety in train operations across Indian Railways. It is a state of the art electronic system of Safety Integrity Level – 4 standards.
• KAVACH is meant to provide protection by preventing trains to pass the signal at Danger (Red) and avoid collision. It activates the train braking system automatically if the driver fails to control the train as per the speed restrictions. In addition, it prevents collision between two Locomotives equipped with functional KAVACH system.
• ‘Kavach’ is one of the cheapest, Safety Integrity Level 4 (SIL-4) certified technologies with the probability of error is 1 in 10,000 years. Also, it opens avenues of export of this indigenous technology for Railways.

 Features of KAVACH

1. Prevention of Signal Passing at Danger (SPAD)
2. Continuous update of Movement Authority with display of signal aspects in Driver Machine Interface (DMI) / Loco Pilot operation cum Indication Panel (LPOCIP)
3. Automatic Braking for Prevention of Over Speeding
4. Auto Whistling while approaching Level Crossing Gates
5. Prevention of collision between two Locomotives equipped with functional KAVACH
6. SoS Messages during emergency situations
7. Centralized live monitoring of Train movements through Network Monitor System.

National Rail Plan Vision – 2030

Indian Railways have prepared a National Rail Plan (NRP) for India – 2030.

The Plan is to create a ‘future ready’ Railway system by 2030.

The NRP is aimed to formulate strategies based on both operational capacities and commercial policy initiatives to increase modal share of the Railways in freight to 45%.

The objective of the Plan is to create capacity ahead of demand, which in turn would also cater to future growth in demand right up to 2050 and also increase the modal share of Railways to 45% in freight traffic and to continue to sustain it. 

The key objectives of the National Rail Plan are:-

• Formulate strategies based on both operational capacities and commercial policy initiatives to increase modal share of the Railways in freight to 45%.
• Reduce transit time of freight substantially by increasing average speed of freight trains to 50Kmph.
• As part of the National Rail Plan, Vision 2024 has been launched for accelerated implementation of certain critical projects by 2024 such as 100% electrification, multi-tracking of congested routes, upgradation of speed to 160 kmph on Delhi-Howrah and Delhi-Mumbai routes, upgradation of speed to 130kmph on all other Golden Quadrilateral-Golden Diagonal (GQ/GD) routes and elimination of all Level Crossings on all GQ/GD route.
• Identify new Dedicated Freight Corridors.
• Identify new High Speed Rail Corridors.
• Assess rolling stock requirement for passenger traffic as well as wagon requirement for freight.
• Assess Locomotive requirement to meet twin objectives of 100% electrification (Green Energy) and increasing freight modal share.
• Assess the total investment in capital that would be required along with a periodical break up.
• Sustained involvement of the Private Sector in areas like operations and ownership of rolling stock, development of freight and passenger terminals, development/operations of track infrastructure etc.

Konkan Railway accomplishes ‘Mission 100% Electrification’

• On a mission mode to electrify its entire Broad Gauge network to provide environment friendly, green & clean mode of transport to its people under the ‘Mission 100% Electrification – Moving towards net Zero Carbon Emission’ plan, Konkan Railway has accomplished 100% Rail electrification of its entire stretch.
• The foundation stone for the Electrification of the entire 741 kms route work was laid in November 2015. The total cost of the project is Rs. 1287 crore. The CRS inspection of the entire Konkan Railway route has been successfully conducted in six phases starting from March 2020. CRS inspection of the last section between Ratnagiri & Thivim was carried out on 24/03/2022 and authorization was obtained on 28/03/2022.