Chapter 1 Freight services in Indian Railways - Comptroller and ...

Report No .8 of 2010-11 (Railways)
• The unloading line at Ennore Port Limited siding in SR was partially wired
to suit unloading by poclain cranes, which necessitated shunt moves for
placement and removal of wagons. The consequential loss of Rs.9.19 crore
due to detentions to wagons was not getting compensated as the siding was
declared as an independent booking point.
IR accepted (March 2010) that the sudden jump in loading in the period under
review resulted in shortages of locomotives and rolling stock and that
currently the number of driving units in the system was substantially less than
the number of rakes and thus detentions to rakes were unavoidable. Though
IR claimed that by prioritizing facilities at terminals, detentions were reduced,
Audit observed that the average detention from the placement of rake to their
release continued to be beyond the envisaged time of 16 hours in a substantial
number of terminals, indicating that the loading/unloading facilities were
deficient in the freight terminals.
Leveraging Information Technology
Freight Operations Information System (FOIS) was developed by IR with a
view to computerise freight operations and to provide a wide range of
information to enable planning, direction and control of freight operations as
well as to provide a real time view of transactions. IT Audit of FOIS was
conducted across IR to assess the system design, reliability and timely
availability of basic operating data, Information Systems controls and security
environment. The detailed findings are reported separately in Chapter 2.
Broadly, it was seen that the system was largely being utilised to generate
Railway Receipts. The system design was not comprehensive, the master data
bases contained numerous errors and the system was not serving as a tool for
decision making. Even though exhaustive details of demands of customers
were captured to assess the load and to facilitate decisions on allotment of
rakes using FOIS, decisions were taken manually defeating the very objective
of capturing such exhaustive details.
Further, comparative analysis of manual data on detentions vis-à-vis the data
reported through FOIS pertaining to nine terminals in SCR (whose details
were only made available) indicated that the detentions details reported by
FOIS were mostly understated and the extent of understatement ranged from
15 minutes to 32 hours, which indicated that the information was unreliable.
Similarly, in ER, detention details were understated by FOIS ranging from 38
minutes to 57 hours in 21 out of 23 terminals.
IR in its reply (March 2010) stated that the discrepancies in reporting of
detentions would be eliminated with full implementation of TMS along with
control charting. IR also mentioned that zones were being advised to take
appropriate measures to strengthen the internal checks.
Free time allowance
IR reduced the free time for loading/unloading from nine to seven hours at
thermal sidings. The Committee constituted by Ministry of Power (June 2008)
reviewed the infrastructure at 38 thermal power house sidings across IR and
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