http://irse.forumco.com/irsehttp://irse.forumco.com/rss.gifhttp://www.irse.bravehost.comhttp://irse.forumco.com/rss.gif8637S.ravihttp://irse.forumco.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=277010Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:32:03 +0100
http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=Tiruchy+railway+HQ+gets+five+star+status&artid=zf28SFqwK6s=&SectionID=lifojHIWDUU=&MainSectionID=wIcBMLGbUJI=&SectionName=rSY|6QYp3kQ=&SEO=

Greeshma Gopal Giri

CHENNAI: The Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) has accorded star status to two buildings under the Southern Railway for energy efficiency. The BEE has conferred a five star status to the railway headquarters building in Tiruchy and three star status to the headquarters building in Thiruvananthapuram.

A senior official with the railways said that it was the first time in the history of Indian railways that its buildings were given star status for energy conservation. “Tiruchy and Thiruvananthapuram belong to the group of oldest divisions in Indian railways. It is indeed a tremendous achievement,” said the official.

This achievement is viewed as an effort of the railways in implementing the concept of green buildings in the times of global warming. “This shows that the railways have the capability of meeting the standards set by BEE in energy conservation by bringing down its consumption,” he said.

The star rating programme for buildings is brought in to create a demand in the market for energy efficient buildings based on actual performance of the building in terms of specific energy usage. This programme would rate office buildings on a one to five star scale with five star labelled buildings being the most efficient.

In February 2009, BEE had maintained that five categories of buildings — office buildings, hotels, hospitals, retail malls, and IT parks — in five climate zones in the country. Initially, the programme targeted the following three climatic zones for air-conditioned and non-air-conditioned office buildings: warm and humid, composite, hot and dry. This would be subsequently extended to other climatic zones.]]>S.ravihttp://irse.forumco.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=276910Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:29:08 +0100TNN 19 November 2009, 10:08pm IST
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/vadodara/-Railway-skywalk-contract-to-be-tabled-in-standing-committee-meet-Saturday-/articleshow/5244753.cms

VADODARA: The ambitious project of setting up a skywalk in the railway station area, that witnesses extreme traffic, is expected to get a final nod in the standing committee meeting of Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) on Saturday.

The skywalk will connect the railway station to the city bus stand and Kadakbazar.

The proposal of making a skywalk in the station area of the city was being discussed since early this year. A committee comprising the top brass of VMC, city police and Vadodara division of the railways had zeroed down on the need for it to take care of the extensive movement of pedestrians in the area.

The skywalk will directly connect the foot overbridge near the Railway Mail Service office to the city bus stand from where VITCOS operates the bus service.

Officials said that the station area was witnessing heavy traffic and pedestrians used to cross the road in large numbers when trains arrived to reach the bus stand or autorickshaws. This created problems both for motorists and pedestrians.

The proposed skywalk is three metres wide and approximately 148 metre long. It entails an investment of Rs 1.89 crore. A bid by a contractor has been finalised after tenders were invited for the same. The bid that has been selected will be taken to the standing committee for its final nod on Saturday.

Sources said that the civic body had earlier decided to build the skywalk on a build, operate and transfer' model. With no suitable proposals for the same, the VMC decided to get the skywalk constructed on its own and earn revenue from the advertising boards placed on it.

Functionaries added that in the long run, a second skywalk was also being considered in the station area. This will connect the foot overbridge near the present parcel office to the autorickshaw stand near VMC's guest house.
]]>S.ravihttp://irse.forumco.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=276810Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:27:49 +0100Kumod Verma , TNN 19 November 2009, 08:06pm IST
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ranchi/ECR-begins-work-to-give-facelift-to-bridges/articleshow/5247975.cms
* East Central Railway
* FACELIFT TO BRIDGES

PATNA: The East Central Railway (ECR) has taken up bridge rehabilitation work under the different divisions of the zone on a priority basis. Out of the 6,502 bridges under the ECR, 733 are major ones.

Some of the over 100-year-old bridges have been accorded the status of heritage bridges of the railways.

According to ECR CPRO Dilip Kumar, the railways is building a new bridge parallel to the existing one at Kiul at an estimated cost of Rs 100 crore. The new bridge is likely to streamline the run of passenger and goods trains. While the length of the bridge will be about 600 metres, the new platforms at Kiul would be long enough to accommodate all mail and express trains with a load combination of 24 bogies.

The passenger reservation system, waiting hall, booking counters and other amenities would be made available at the new station building at Kiul to cater to the needs of passengers, he said.

Besides, plans are afoot to remodel the railway yard at Kiul at a cost of Rs 30 crore as the station, of late, has transformed into a major junction and several mail and express trains pass from this zone. The move would help railways cope with the heavy rush of traffic, the CPRO said.

The ECR's Danapur division has about 1,241 big and small bridges. Of these, 197, including the Koelwar, Rajendra Pul and Kiul ones, are considered major bridges. The railways has completed the rehabilitation work on almost each major bridge of the division at a cost of Rs 20- 30 crore.

Currently, the rehabilitation work is going on bridges on the Kiul-Gaya and mainline sections of the division. This work is almost complete, he said.

According to the CPRO, the Koelwar bridge, which was built in 1900, has already been given a facelift at a cost of Rs 4 crore. The railways is also building the Jagjiwan bridge over river Gandak between Sonepur and Hajipur at a cost of Rs 86 crore. It will have a double-line facility and its total length would be around 4.5 km. This project would be completed by the end of 2011, he said, adding that the railways has about 1.2 lakh bridges across the country, of which, about 51,340 bridges are over 100 years old.

The railways has decided to rehabilitate about 2,700 old bridges to maintain safety measures, the CPRO said.
]]>S.ravihttp://irse.forumco.com/topic.asp?whichpage=-1&TOPIC_ID=1830&REPLY_ID=200410Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:47:01 +0100S.ravihttp://irse.forumco.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=276710Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:44:28 +0100http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/19/stories/2009111951210300.htm

HUBLI: Little Kingdom Nursery English Medium School run by South Western Railway Women’s Welfare Organisation (SWRWWO) for children of Railway employees,observed “Vegetables Day” on Tuesday.

Inaugurating the event, president of SWRWWO Kalpana Chaturvedi, said that the main aim of the programme was to educate and create awareness among the children about the importance of vegetables in daily intake of food.

She gave away prizes for the best “fancy vegetable dress”.
]]>S.ravihttp://irse.forumco.com/topic.asp?whichpage=-1&TOPIC_ID=2754&REPLY_ID=200310Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:43:15 +0100S.ravihttp://irse.forumco.com/topic.asp?whichpage=-1&TOPIC_ID=220&REPLY_ID=200210Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:41:39 +0100S.ravihttp://irse.forumco.com/topic.asp?whichpage=-1&TOPIC_ID=124&REPLY_ID=200110Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:39:19 +0100S.ravihttp://irse.forumco.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=276610Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:38:02 +0100Railways may make equity infusion in finance arm

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2009/11/19/stories/2009111951391000.htm

IRFC raise Rs 4,000 cr in the remaining part of 2009-10.

IRFC uses borrowed funds to acquire rolling stock.

New Delhi, Nov. 18 Having already mobilised Rs 5,270 crore in the current fiscal, the Indian Railway Finance Corporation (IRFC) will be raising Rs 4,000 crore in the remaining part of 2009-10.

To raise these funds, it will use a combination of instruments such as tax-free bonds, 15-20 year taxable bonds, term loans and securitisation deals. But the exact break-up is not yet decided.

ADDITIONAL EQUITY


“We are waiting for clarity from the Finance Ministry on the exact amount of tax-free bonds that we can issue in the current fiscal. Then, we also have to look at the market appetite for tax-free bonds,” Mr R. Kashyap, Managing Director, IRFC, told Business Line. IRFC has an in-principle approval to raise Rs 5,000 crore through tax-free bonds.

The company is also trying to obtain additional equity infusion of Rs 291 crore from the Railway Ministry. The Ministry is considering the proposal. After the equity infusion, the paid-up equity of IRFC will be Rs 1,000 crore, which also is the current authorised capital of the company.

This step is being taken to ensure that the debt-equity ratio of IRFC is well within the 10:1 limit, as is the Government norm for NBFCs.

With a mandate to raise Rs 9,170 crore in 2009-10, the highest ever till date, IRFC is close to the debt-equity levels of 9:1. “We have also written to the Railway Ministry to increase the organisation’s authorised capital to Rs 2,000 crore,” Mr Kashyap said.

IRFC has already raised Rs 5,270 crore in the current fiscal from the domestic and external market. This has been done with an average cost of 7.5 per cent and average tenor of seven years.

From the domestic market, IRFC mobilised Rs 3,111 crore, with an average tenor of eight years and cost of 8.25 per cent. Most of the domestic market mobilisation was carried out in the April-July period.

In 2009-10, IRFC consciously frontloaded its borrowing programme anticipating increase in interest rates in the subsequent period.

“In April, we had raised Rs 1,811 crore. The cost was 7.4 per cent (five-year tenor), 8.19 per cent (ten years) and 8.2 per cent (15 years). In the last seven years, we had never raised funds in April as the market is usually difficult,” Mr Kashyap said.

“With this step, IRFC saved itself an additional liability of about Rs 40 crore over the repayment period,” he said.

IRFC also mobilised $450 million (Rs 2,159 crore) from the external market at LIBOR plus 230 bps. The actual cost was four per cent with five-year tenor, without hedging.

“Assuming hedging, the cost to IRFC will be 6.5 per cent,” he said.

In 2008-09, IRFC funded acquisition of 472 locomotives, 2,196 passenger coaches and 7,788 freight cars, valued at Rs 6,990.75 crore. IRFC – the finance mobilising arm of the Indian Railways — uses the borrowed funds to acquire rolling stocks, which it then leases out to the Indian Railways.

The Railways, in turn, pays a lease charge on the assets owned by IRFC.



]]>S.ravihttp://irse.forumco.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=276510Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:31:44 +0100--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

17:31 IST

LOK SABHA
http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=54243


Railways is undertaking various measures to ensure food safety, hygiene and nutritional content of food at stations and in trains as under:-

Ř Food Audit has been done by M/s TUV SUD South Asia in various areas including premium Trains, base Kitchen and Food Plazas.

Ř A number of special drive have been conducted on premium trains including Rajdhani, Shatabdi and other Mail/Express trains and licensees base kitchens through officers and Quality Control Professionals (QCPs) so as to improve quality of catering services. Punitive actions have been taken against defaulting licensees by imposing heavy fines in case of major deficiencies and warnings in case of minor deficiencies.

Ř A web enabled automated Complaint Management System and a dedicated complaint cell at zonal/regional level has been put into place for efficient redressal of complaints. A national toll free number 1800-111-139 has been launched for lodging of complaints by passengers

Ř Customer Satisfaction Survey has been conducted through M/s IMRB International trains.

This information was given by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Railways, Shri K.H. Muniyappa in a written reply in Lok Sabha today.

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AKS/LK/TR

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