Rail budget 2015-16: Ease of doing business for railway suppliers
Updated: Feb 26, 2015 03:20:05pm
New Delhi, Feb 26 (KNN) The Union Railway Minister Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu in his maiden budget for Indian Railways has attempted to balance passenger needs with the ambition to raise the level of safety and services to global level.
Although there wasn’t much for the common man in terms of concession on fares or introduction of new trains etc. it gave a sense of hope to expect the unexpected in the coming few years.
In order to meet the benchmark of worldwide standards and services, the minister has set four goals for the largest rail network of the world; Improved customer experience, safer travel, modern infrastructure and financial self-sustainability.
One of the notable proposition in his budget speech was the idea to digitally integrate the vendors through a Vendor Interface Management System that will provide a single window interface for the vendors who are part of Railways material management system. This act of going paperless will certainly be a step forward in ease of doing business with the Railways for the thousands of suppliers.
He also informed that the Railways intends to set up a working group to modify the present system of accounting, to ensure tracking of expenditure to desired outcomes. The Railways have limited resources and thus must ensure that all public expenditure results in an optimal outcome. The data on costing would be available online including costs incurred on constructing, augmenting, maintaining and operating railway lines. This would also help in undertaking post commissioning evaluation studies, he explained.
One of the major challenge that the suppliers are facing in supplying goods to railways is delayed payments. This is hurting their growth and with the introduction of such systems it is all to be hoped that such problems would be positively addressed. (KNN/VV)
Although there wasn’t much for the common man in terms of concession on fares or introduction of new trains etc. it gave a sense of hope to expect the unexpected in the coming few years.
In order to meet the benchmark of worldwide standards and services, the minister has set four goals for the largest rail network of the world; Improved customer experience, safer travel, modern infrastructure and financial self-sustainability.
One of the notable proposition in his budget speech was the idea to digitally integrate the vendors through a Vendor Interface Management System that will provide a single window interface for the vendors who are part of Railways material management system. This act of going paperless will certainly be a step forward in ease of doing business with the Railways for the thousands of suppliers.
He also informed that the Railways intends to set up a working group to modify the present system of accounting, to ensure tracking of expenditure to desired outcomes. The Railways have limited resources and thus must ensure that all public expenditure results in an optimal outcome. The data on costing would be available online including costs incurred on constructing, augmenting, maintaining and operating railway lines. This would also help in undertaking post commissioning evaluation studies, he explained.
One of the major challenge that the suppliers are facing in supplying goods to railways is delayed payments. This is hurting their growth and with the introduction of such systems it is all to be hoped that such problems would be positively addressed. (KNN/VV)
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