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As the work of electrification of railway track is a time consuming job and as the pace of electrification had been drastically reduced about five years back, there was a reduction in the available manpower in CORE. Various suppliers, manufacturers and contractors doing Railway Electrification work also diversified to other activities. It seemed on almost insurmountable challenge to enhance the pace of electrification in that scenario.
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CORE adopted the following strategies with a view to achieve higher pace of electrification.
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1.0
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Interaction with manufacturers and suppliers
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The reduced work load of Railway Electrification had discouraged the regular contractors of electrification work as they had switched over to other business. Repeated interaction was initiated with the old contractors to encourage them to come back for Railway Electrification works. The pace of electrification was now planned to be enhanced beyond the earlier levels of 500 to 600 RKM to much higher levels, thus, apart from wooing back the old contractors, efforts to bring in new contractors for Railway Electrification works were also initiated.
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The manufacturers of OHE fittings, insulators, copper conductors and steel structures had also diversified and moved to other business keeping in view the low requirement for Railway Electrification materials due to reduced pace of electrification.Repeated interactions were held with the suppliers and confidence instilled in them regarding the future growth of electrification. With this strategy all the suppliers were motivated to allocate more resources and also to augment their existing capacities to produce the required materials for Railway Electrification work. Apart from the already approved sources, interaction was held with various manufacturers engaged in the business of similar type of activities with a view to bring them to produce items required for Railway Electrification. The vendor approval system was also streamlined to cut out the procedural delays and to develop an atmosphere of mutual trust between CORE and various manufacturers.
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2.0
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Empowerment to field organizations
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Empowerment of field units by way of delegation of additional powers for contract management at field level also helped in reducing the delays in decision making process and resulted in smooth progress of works. The various systems and procedures were suitably modified for empowering the field units to have speedier execution of work.
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3.0
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Material Management
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System of procurement of material required for Railway Electrification work has been fully revamped. Advance planning is being made now to procure/finalise the purchase contracts well in advance of requirement with a view to facilitate timely availability of material.
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4.0
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Contract Management
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Turnkey tender had been floated for group 150 (Katihar-Raniganj, 267 RKM, approx. cost `217.93 Crore.Different components of RE works (OHE, TSS, SCADA, Signalling, telecom, Civil works) have been integrated in this tender.The tender is under finalisation.
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5.0
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Cost saving measures
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In construction of various transmission lines under Hajipur project arrangement (location of TSS in BSEB grid sub stations) were made with BSEB to reduce length of transmission lines eventually resulting in substantial saving for Railways.
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6.0
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Availability of machinery
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Apart from reduction of manpower over a period of time, other resources required for electrification like tower wagons, cranes, wiring trains etc. also got reduced in numbers in view of the reduced electrification. It was, therefore, necessary to deploy these resources judiciously to enable maximum out put from the remaining balance resources. Simultaneously, efforts were also made to procure these essential assets required for progressing electrification works.
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7.0
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Meticulous planning of works involved
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The work of electrification involves a number of activities which can be done in sequence like casting of foundations, erection of masts, fastening brackets, wiring etc. Earlier all these activities were being got carried out sequentially.
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The work of casting of foundations was carried out in the initial period of financial year and subsequently mast erection and then wiring activities were carried out towards the end of financial year.
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