RPF and Medical Warriors of Western Rly excelled beyond their limits
Western Railway has the many feathers in its hat since its inception on 5th November, 1951. In continuation to its progress journey, it has once again been able to set new records by achieving best ever performances in various fields during the concluded financial year 2019-20. Despite the tough times amidst the 21-day Coronavirus lockdown, […]
Western Railway has the many feathers in its hat since its inception on 5th November, 1951. In continuation to its progress journey, it has once again been able to set new records by achieving best ever performances in various fields during the concluded financial year 2019-20.
Despite the tough times amidst the 21-day Coronavirus lockdown, Western Railway continues to break all barriers in achieving & becoming the best of the best on the front of security, medical, personnel & accounts alongwith other departments of WR. Alok Kansal- General Manager of Western Rly has congratulated all concerned Principal Heads of Departments & their teams for their marvelous achievements despite several challenging situations.
According to a press release issued by WR CPRO Ravinder Bhakar, this year has been an eventful one & full of achievements for Western Rly especially security & medical departments are playing a major role beyond their limits, in the fight with the terrific CORONA crisis.
● Health Care
It is worth mentioning that during the Coronavirus Pandemic Lockdown, the Medical Dept. of Western Railway proactively came forward in providing medical help, readying the hospitals to be equipped to face the scary times of the COVID-19. Western Railway’s Jagjivan Ram Hospital turned into a combat zone by providing 361-bed for isolation ward. The divisional railway hospitals at Pratapnagar, Vadodara provided 50 beds, Sabarmati, Ahmedabad provided 40 beds and DRH at Ratlam readied 60 beds for isolation wards.
Other than this, space has been made for doctors and paramedical staff who are working continuously round the clock without heading to their homes. These teams will be going home after a week for 14 days home quarantine. At the same time, special beds are also being kept reserved for hospital staff/healthcare workers in case they contract the infection while giving care. Provision of air conditioning has been made at more wards where feasible natural ventilation with large windows on opposite sides are available in the rest of the wards.
All divisional hospitals are also equipped with quarantine beds. The divisions have also conducted awareness activities such as widespread publicity about Coronavirus, training the staff, sanitization, cleanliness of colonies, etc. 96 doctors and 188 nurses have been trained to handle ventilators through webinars hosted by the MOHFW and AIIMS. All other staff are also getting hands on training. All the railway hospital have initiated daily fever clinics since 6th March, 2020 in which 3399 cases have been attended.
During the year 2019-20, WR’s Jagjivan Ram Hospital became the first railway hospital to carry out Trans -Catheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) procedure over Indian Railways. The procedure is performed without any major open heart surgery in high risk patients. For the first time on Indian Railways organ retrieval was done with the help of the Zonal Organ Transplant Centre.
Jagjivan Ram Hospital also successfully treated a challenging case of non-union tibia and fibula with broken implants and metallosis which was treated elsewhere and a neglected and challenging case of non-union supracondylar fracture femur with modern AO technique and bone grafting. The Orthopedic Dept. also performed one difficult arthrodesis of knee joint by LRS (Limb Reconstruction System) for chronic infection of knee joint and an acetabular fracture fixation surgery has been performed which is a rare case. The Medical Department has initiated the facility of a Help desk. The dept. has also enhanced patient information services by providing kiosks, TV for displays and audio visual aids.
The Medical Department of Vadodara Division conducted hands on Cardio pulmonary Resuscitation training for Frontline staff at Different stations, workshops in 2019-20. The dept. also conducted Initial Medical examination of approx. 11,641 candidates in the year 2019-20 including appeal cases till now.
● Security First
The Railway Protection Force (RPF) of Western Railway have shown exceptional work during the Coronavirus Lockdown. RPF has distributed more than 1.13 lakh food packets to the needy and poor from 28th March to 11th April, 2020. The Special Parcel trains carrying essential commodities have been escorted by the RPF. RPF posts/OPs are being sanitized everyday whereas barracks are being sanitized twice in a week. Besides, sprinklers along with disinfectants have been procured and provided at posts/barracks which are being utilized by staff for sanitizing if need arises.
The RPF has played an instrumental role in procuring and distributing adequate number of PPEs, masks, gloves, hand sanitizers, liquid soap etc. among staff. Every GO has been assigned 2/3 barracks which he/she is visiting twice in a week to check cleanliness as well as status of food preparation in mess. Supplies/availability of liquid soap, masks, gloves, sanitizer are also checked during such visits. Interaction with and Sensitization of staff is also being done during such visits to keep their moral high.
The RPF have paid keen attention to the staff above the age of 50 yrs or with chronic ailments have been identified and are preferably not being deployed on duties like screening of Rly staff at stations/offices, yard patrolling, train escorting etc. Since JRH has been taken over by the State Govt. for treating COVID positive patients, necessary PPEs have been arranged and Separate accommodation/mess facilities have also been arranged for the staff performing duties at JRH as a precautionary measure with a view to segregate them from other RPF staff.
They are providing effective support to railway paramedics working there. It is worth mentioning that in-house Production of reusable 3 ply masks by RPF female trainees at Valsad RPF female trainees have started making 100 masks per day which are being distributed among frontline staff.
The Railway Protection Force (RPF) has day in and day out proved their mettle with their work. Western Railway’s RPF ranked first over Indian Railway in detection of touting cases in the financial year 2019-20 and also to ensure genuine passengers getting confirm tickets either at PRS or at IRCTC portal. During the financial year, total 690 cases of illegal touting were registered and 833 offender were booked under section 143 of Railways Act & seized the 4,06,615 E-tickets amounting Rs. 82,78,26,583/-.
To ensure the restriction of illegal hawking in train/premises as well as the common passengers get the hygiene foods at platform/train, RPF/WR arrested 32,636 illegal hawker for unauthorized hawking in Railway premises/train and all were convicted & fined Rs.13,03,955/- were realized also 236 hawkers were sent to jail.
To maintain the safety & security of divyangjan in handicapped coach RPF/WR arrested 56,241 outsider for traveling in coaches reserved for handicapped person. Out of which, 56,213 persons were convicted and fined Rs. 96,71,090/- & 28 outsiders were send to jail. Safety & security of lady passengers was the prime focus area for which, RPF/WR initiated special drives against people who traveled in the ladies reserved coached and arrested 19,772 persons for travelling in ladies coaches unauthorized. Out of these, 19,667 have been convicted and fined Rs.30,55,350/- & 5 persons sent to jail.
RPF/WR also initiated special drives to save the passengers fallen down and passengers who fall down due to footboard travelling. A total of 13,571 people were apprehended for travelling on footboard & 13,578 persons were fined Rs.18,54,050/- & 19 outsider were send to jail. In order to maintain the punctuality of passenger trains over Western Railway, RPF arrested 3,769 outsider who pulled the chain without any justified reason and booked them in 141 Railways Act and prosecuted in Railway Court and Rs.18,05,300/- fine realized by Railway Court. During the year 2019-20, 192027 persons were apprehended under various sections include the above major section of the Railways Act & fine Rs.4,70,75,268/- were realized.
Some Other Major Achievements by RPF in 2019-20 are:
1. 810 Runway children were rescued by reuniting them with parents or handed over to NGOs/Police by RPF/WR.
2. Life of 36 passengers were saved by alert RPF at various station of Western Railway, endangering their own safety.
3. 9884 passengers assisted through Helpline/8311 & Twitter/1573. All the passengers given full assistance and help by RPF on this portal.
4. 628 Criminals involved in passenger offences i.e. 470 theft of Passenger belongings cases, 146 Robbery cases, 04 Kidnapping cases, 01 Drugging offender & 07 Impersonate Cases, were apprehended by RPF/WR.
5. 1071 Passengers leftover belongings valued Rs.2,60,78,415/- were returned by RPF to the owners.
6. 235 cases of carrying illicit liquor were detected by RPF with recovery of 16,631 bottles V/Rs.18,06,996/- and handed over 234 outsiders to GRP for further action.
7. 254.94 Kg Ganja V/Rs.26,44,170/- recovered with arrest of 05 outsiders.
8. 11 cases of Crime against women were detected by RPF.
Employee Welfare Is top Priority
Western Railway is the first zonal railway to complete the recruitment in the erstwhile Grade-D categories by recruiting around 5600 candidates in safety and other categories related directly with train operations. Western Railway is also the first zonal railway to complete the engagement of Act Apprentices last year. 3323 candidates were engaged under this scheme. 3551 candidates(a bulk of them in safety and paramedical categories) have been recruited through RRB this year which is the best ever recruitment in an year on Western Railway.
This was made possible by advance planning and ensuring smooth pre-recruitment formalities like document verification, expeditious medical examination, etc. To make the training more focused and to cater to needs of ever changing technology, a state-of-the-art training centre has been made in each division and one for Zonal Railway. 23 training centres are being reorganised into 12 state-of-the-art training centres. Western Railway is leading in ensuring starting of these institutes.
Western Railway also became the first zonal railway to complete the training of all its employees for both Saksham-I and Saksham-II project. Comparatively, Western Railway has trained most employees amongst all zonal railways. A compendium of all training modules was released during Saksham-II giving details of training of each category in all departments. W.Rly is also the first zone to establish a full fledged AYUSH dispensary where consultants are available from all the 5 streams, viz Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy.
●Proper care of pensioners
While Western Railway was the first to complete revision of pension in case of all its pensioners (around one lakh) as a result of implementation of 7th CPC in the year 2018-2019, the Accounts Department has subsequently introduced a Grievance Module in ARPAN in April 2019, enabling pensioners to raise their grievances on line allowing speedier resolution of same. Beside this, a module has also been introduced in ARPAN in Jan 2020 to enable the railway to authorize fresh family pension to dependent family members. This has helped in speedy issue of Pension Payment Order in case of unmarried daughter/widowed daughter/disabled children etc. which were earlier dealt manually.
