The Minister of Railways Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu while presenting the Railway Budget 2016-17 in the Parliament today has proposed to transform Indian Railways through seven Mission activities – Avataran. These missions are:

1.      Mission 25 Tonne – It aims to increase revenue by augmenting carrying capacity. To achieve this 10-20% freight loading will be done through 25-tonne axle-load wagons in 2016-17 and target movement of 70% of freight traffic on high axle load wagons by FY19-20.

2.      Mission Zero Accident: It comprises of two sub missions

a.       Elimination of unmanned level crossings: The goal is eliminate all unmanned level crossings on Broad Gauge in the next 3-4 years through innovative financing mechanisms. It will reduce deaths due to accidents and improve throughput of the network

b.      TCAS (Train Collision Avoidance System): An indigenous technology has been developed to equip 100% of the High Density Network with TCAS in the next 3 years. This will prevent head on collisions and improve throughput by increasing average sectional speeds.

3.      Mission PACE (Procurement and Consumption Efficiency): This mission aims to improve our procurement and consumption practices to improve the quality of goods and services. It will introduce a culture of optimum usage by adopting practices such as Vendor Managed Inventory, direct procurement of HSD, new procedures for identification and disposal of scrap. Comprehensive review of procurement and consumption of HSD will lead to saving more than ₹ 1,500 crore in 2016-17.

4.      Mission Raftaar: It targets doubling of average speeds of freights trains and increasing the average speed of superfast mail/express trains by 25 kmph in the next 5 years. Loco hauled passenger trains will be replaced by DEMU/MEMU over the next five years. It will complement Mission 25 Tonne to increase throughput of the railway system.

5.      Mission Hundred: This mission will commission at least a hundred sidings in the next 2 years. The current siding/ PFT policy would be revised to elicit greater private participation. An online portal will be operated for accepting and processing all new applications, alongwith decentralization of powers.

6.      Mission beyond book-keeping: It will establish an accounting system where outcomes can be tracked to inputs. This will transform IR as right accounting would determine right costing and hence right pricing and right outcomes.

7.      Mission Capacity Utilisation: It proposes to prepare a blueprint for making full use of the huge new capacity that will be created through two Dedicated Freight Corridors between Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Kolkata scheduled to be commissioned by 2019.

Shri Prabhu said that each of the Missions will be headed by a Mission Director reporting directly to the Chairman, Railway Board for a timely targeted delivery. They will be supported by officers from each Zone/Production Unit/RDSO/Centralised Training Institutes. Each Mission will have annual outcome based performance targets.

Mission-based railway transformation aims to boost freight capacity and safety through targeted operational and governance reforms. Avataran comprises seven missions to reform Indian Railways by increasing freight capacity through higher axle load wagons, eliminating unmanned level crossings and deploying an indigenous Train Collision Avoidance System, improving procurement and fuel consumption practices, increasing train speeds and replacing loco hauled locals with multiple unit trains, commissioning new sidings with greater private participation via an online portal, instituting outcome based accounting, and preparing a blueprint to utilise capacity from Dedicated Freight Corridors; each mission will be led by a Mission Director reporting to the Railway Board Chairman with annual outcome targets.