Panel set up to restructure Railway Board

TNN | Sep 26, 2014,

NAGPUR: The Railway Board has constituted a committee to take forward the budget announcements made by minister of railways regarding mobilization of resources for major railway projects and restructuring of railway ministry and Railway Board.

The committee will be headed by noted economist Bibek Debroy. The other members include former cabinet secretary KM Chandrashekhar, Gurcharan Das, senior fellow of Centre for Policy Research (CPR) Partha Mukhopadhyay, former managing director of National Stock Exchange (NSE) Ravi Narain, former financial commissioner of railways Rajendra Kashyap, and a nominee of department of economic affairs. Sanjay Chadha of Railway Board will be member-secretary of the committee.

The terms of reference (ToR) of the committee include reorganizing and restructuring the board and subsequently the department, so that policymaking and operations are separated. The policymaking will focus on long-term and medium-term planning issues while operations will focus on day-to-day functioning of the organization.

Sources said the committee will suggest promoting exchange of officers between the railways and other departments. It will also estimate financial needs of the railways and ensure appropriate frameworks and policies are in place to raise resources, both internally and from outside the government, to enable the railways to meet the demands of the future.

The committee will also examine and suggest modalities for implementing the existing cabinet decision on setting up a Rail Tariff Authority (RTA) and give recommendations.