INDIA & Russia Sign Memorandum of Cooperation On Strengthening Cooperation in Railway Sector

MINISTRY of Indian Railways and The   Russian Railways have inked a  Memorandum of Cooperation   on the sidelines of the India-Russia Summit  in the  presence  of  President  of  Russia  Vladimir  Putin  and  Prime Minister  Narendra Modi in New Delhi. The MOC intends to carry forward the activities taken up under the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between India and Russia on December, 24, 2015.It includes the implementation of a speed-upgradation project in the Nagpur-Secunderabad section, setting up of a single traffic-control centre for managing mixed traffic at the local level, best practices in freight cargo operations, development of multi-modal terminals and exchange of the best technologies used by the two countries. It will also include training and advanced qualification improvement of Indian Railway employees with the involvement of Russian railway-related higher education establishments. The cooperation agreement was signed by Railway Board Chairman Ashwani Lohani and Oleg Belozerov, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Russian Railways. An MoU was also signed between the Ministry of Railways and the Ministry of Transport of Russian Federation for development of cooperation in transport education. It aims at providing organisational and methodological support to the higher educational institutions implementing joint projects in the field of transport education in both the countries. It also envisages cooperation between the Russian University of Transport and the National Rail Transportation Institute, Vadodara to jointly organise educational transport seminars. The agreement was signed by Lohani and Nikolay Rishatovich Kudashev, the Russian Ambassador to India.

Meanwhile, Southern Railway has become an unmanned level crossing free zone among the zonal Railways .The Southern Railway has said it has become Unmanned Level Crossing (UMLC) Free Zone, eliminating over 1,000 such level crossings. In a press release issued in Chennai today, it said Palakkad, Thiruvananthapuram and Chennai Divisions became UMLC free during the first quarter of the current year.    The elimination of all 1054 UMLCs was done by offering alternate modes of crossing the track by the provision of subways, diversion to adjacent manned level crossings, subways, the road under bridges and outright closure due to low road traffic.