Addressing the gathering after conferring the awards and shields, Vaishnaw congratulated all the awardees for their exceptional work and effort.
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has conferred the ‘Ati Vishisht Rail Seva Puraskar’ (AVRSP) on 100 Railway employees from various Zones and Divisions, Production Units and Railway PSUs all over the country for their outstanding services.
Vaishnaw also presented 21 shields for promoting best practices among Railway employees. The awards and shields were presented at the 68th Railway Week Central Function, organised at Bharat Mandapam at Pragati Maidan in the national capital on Friday.
Addressing the gathering after conferring the awards and shields, Vaishnaw congratulated all the awardees for their exceptional work and effort.
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The Railway Minister said: “Transformative work is going on at full pace in Railways under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. More electrification has been done in 9.5 years than in the past 40 years.”
“The big picture behind this transformation is, when in 2015, the Prime Minister merged the Rail Budget with General Budget, interest/ capital charge which had to be paid earlier on the rail grant was not needed and it removed all financial hindrances for the railways. Lack of Investment, which was the biggest problem for railways, is now a thing of the past,” he said.
Talking about the massive potential savings in logistics costs through Railways, Vaishnaw said, “Such transportation, if done by road, involves higher costs along with fuel cost.”
He said as per an estimate, there will be 3000 million tonnes of new cargo, and if railway gets half of it, then it will potentially save 16,000 crore litre of fuel and Rs 1,28,000 crore will be saved through this which will be a big achievement and saving for the nation.
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