Railway crew management in India

Articleissues
cleanup = july 2008
confusing = July 2008
expert = Trains
intro length = july 2008
intromissing = july 2008
restructure = july 2008
unencyclopedic = September 2008
unreferenced = july 2008
wikify = july 2008

Indian Railway, the world's fourth largest network, consists of more than 100,000 Train Drivers/Assistant Drivers/Guards, which forms the basic functioning team, responsible for Train Operations. How vigorous is the job profile can be noted from this very fact that the Railway recruits persons as 'Assistant Loco Drivers' ( The name 'Driver' is replaced with 'Pilot' now). They work on freight trains for as long as 6-7 years. During this tenure they are supposed to work with experienced Train Drivers and perform only assisting work during the run of a locomotive i.e a train. An Assistant Driver thus learns the tactics and dos and don'ts required for train operation. Thereafter they are promoted as 'Shunter', after proper courses and practical trainings, wherein they are supposed to drive locomotives in sheds/yards at not more than 15 km/h speeds. After experiencing for not less than two years, they are promoted as 'Goods Drivers', always monitored by an 'Loco Inspector'.

Present working scenario:The job of a Driver consists of irregular rest hours, irregular working hours, eating disorders, and sleep disorders. That's why the Railway spends a lot on their trainings and rests. They are booked from a crew changing point, called well in advance, after ensuring that they have taken sufficient rest and completed all required trainings and requirements, those are mandatory for train operation. At the end of the journey, they are sent to well maintained rest rooms, given meals (home cooked) and rebooked back to their headquarters after giving minimum stipulated rest.

Latest Developments through softwares:

'Center for Railway Information system' New Delhi, an I.T development unit for Indian Railway, has done a great job by developing a software named 'Crew Management System', wherein bookings of this sensitive category people, which was done manually till now and monitored at various levels by Inspectors and Officers, is arranged through software. Crew Management System is a unique system in which accuracy and monitoring is automatically maintained. The software system was rolled out in December 2007 and already done about 1000 data entry nodes at over 144 crew booking points(in phase-1)which have been commissioned. These are spread over 9 Zones and 30 divisions of the Indian Railways, mainly in the Central, Western, Northern regions of India. CMS at present has a database covering 35,000 crew members and over 8000 crew members are being booked daily through the system. In the next stages, more than 306 such Crew changing points will be commissioned and provided with Thin clients( PCs) connected to a single server at CRIS, wherein all the functions like crew bookings, call served to crews, their signing on duties are done through computers after ensuring their rest particulars, their training particulars and their medical particulars. The job which was done manually till a few times back is now monitored automatically. We don't only have a single data base of all the running staff of Indian Railways, but also have an all around reports(more than 100 reports of these crews are visible to all the monitoring authorities of the Railways). All the officers and concerned incharges sitting in their offices can monitor performance reports of the train operating staff. This enhances the performance planning by the officers. The Ministry of Railways is also doing a great job by motivating such projects and giving sufficient funds for same. A Project which was initially started just 2 years back with a team of 5-6 software persons is now managed by a GM rank officer with a dedicated team of software developers and domain experts, which are basically attached to driving jobs since the last 15-20 years. Hopefully,the Railways will become one of the leading managers in the field of IT with respect to Traffic utilities .

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