'Unprecedented' 100% punctuality; 'full swing manufacturing': Indian Railways on a high

For the first time ever in the history of Indian Railways, 100% punctuality of trains has been achieved, with all the trains on time. The historic feat was achieved on July 1 while the previous best was 99.54% achieved on June 23, 2020, with one train getting delayed. Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal has taken to Twitter to apprise the nation about the achievement, which nonetheless comes at a time when Railway operations are limited amid the Covid pandemic.

Besides the 100% punctuality milestone, Indian Railways has created another tremendous benchmark for itself as the railway manufacturing industry produced 15,582 wheels and 6,480 axles in the month of June despite grappling with the global scale pandemic. The said manufacturing figures are higher as compared to the same period last year when 15,295 wheels and 5,020 axles were produced.

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Indian Railways amid Coronavirus 

Indian Railways which is the largest rail network system in the world has been the lifeline of the country, playing an instrumental role in transporting passengers and goods across the country. Even during the migrant labourers’ crisis which occurred due to COVID-19 consequential lockdown, Indian Railways played a significant role in transporting migrant labourers to their native places in Shramik special trains. Besides, even when there were travel restrictions on citizens due to Coronavirus, trains still functioned to supply essential commodities from one region to another across the country, keeping the supply chain intact amid the health crisis.

According to railways, as many as 4,596 Shramik special trains have operated so far since May 1 to ferrying over 63 lakh migrant passengers to their native places. The last Shramik train ran on Monday as the Indian Railways also said that there was no further demand for Shramik Special trains from any state now.

"There was a demand for just one train from Karnataka and that train is running today (Monday) from Bengaluru to Muzaffarpur. There is no demand for such trains tomorrow as well. We will run them if demand arises from states," one of the spokespersons for the national transporter said on Monday.

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