Southern Railway facing a severe cash crunch and have no option
Shortage of funds for essential activities has reached alarming stage -Rahul Jain
GM/SR sends SOS to Railway Board, warns that OBHS etc will have to be terminated
This is the 1st time that we are going through this kind of financial crisis -An Sr.Official
Chennai: Amid an unprecedented cash crunch, the Southern Railway has sent an SOS to the Ministry of Railways (Railway Board) that if adequate funds are not allotted by August-end, it would have no option but to terminate onboard housekeeping services (OBHS), pest control and supply of linen contracts on all 110 long-distance trains.
While officials prepare to face passenger complaints on dirty coaches, smelly toilets and non-supply of linen in air-conditioned compartments in the event of withdrawing the onboard services, Southern Railway hopes to receive enough funds to pay pending bills to the tune of Rs. 22 crore to the contractors and another Rs. 130 crore to keep the amenities and housekeeping services on.
Though the issue was flagged on July 5, 2019, there was apparently no response from the Ministry, forcing General Manager Rahul Jain to send a reminder a couple of weeks ago, sources in the Railway Ministry confirmed on Monday.
In his letter addressed to the Railway Board, Shri Jain said that the “shortage of revenue funds for essential passenger amenity activities such as laundry/linen, OBHS, and pest control has reached alarming proportion.”
Against the projected requirement of funds of Rs. 194 crore under the head of contractual payments, the budget grant for 2019-20 was only Rs. 108 crore. As on March 31, 2019, pending bills to the tune of Rs. 22 crore were due to contractors in addition to which bills worth Rs. 40 crore were ready for submission.
Urgent Provision
While a sum of Rs. 39 crore was already spent from the allocation in the current fiscal, there was a liability of Rs. 155 crore which was Rs. 86 crore more than the available funds.
“The existing funds will be enough for us only for the bills raised for works done in the month of August-September 2019. In the face of such shortage of funds, Southern Railway shall have no option but to stop all OBHS work on all 110 trains in a few weeks’ time and thus would have to start issuing contract termination notices shortly. Pest control too, will have to stop.. it is requested that urgent provision of funds may please be made for these essential passenger amenity activities,” the General Manager Rahul Jain said.
“We need an immediate allocation of Rs. 40 crore to settle the old dues to contractors and keep the services on without any interruption,” the official said.
The issue of cash crunch has surfaced at a time when the Railway Board has laid emphasis on ‘Swachchh Bharat Abhiyan’ and other cleanliness campaigns. After the OBHS was introduced, complaints of dirty coaches or stinking toilets came down drastically since the cleaning staff traveled on the train and responded to complaints made to Call Centre, Coach Mitra and Twitter handle of railway officials, among others within minutes.
No Response
“The entire OBHS, pest control, and linen supply are outsourced to dozens of contractors and we don’t have the infrastructure or manpower to continue the facility if their services are terminated. This is the first time that we are going through this kind of a financial crisis and there is not much of response for alerts seeking funds,” a senior railway official said.
Source: The Hindu