Sambalpur adjudged best-performing railway division in August

SAMBALPUR: The Sambalpur Railway Division has earned the top spot for performance among all 68 railway divisions of the country for August. The Ratlam Railway Division of Western Railways secured the second place and the Guntakal Railway Division of Southern Central Railways registered the third spot.

The performance of the divisions was based on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) — a set of 55 criteria including mobility, safety, punctuality, infrastructure development and finance. The Railway Board evaluated the divisions and announced the results on Monday.

While the Sambalpur division, established in 1990, topped the list by securing 73.2 marks out of a total of 80 on the combined KPIs, the Ratlam division scored 73.1 and the Guntakal division got 72.1.

The Sambalpur division had performed well even in April, May and June, when it had been placed second. In July, it had come third.

Divisional Railway Manager (DRM), Sambalpur, Jaideep Gupta, expressed happiness at the achievement and complimented the staff. “This is the first time the Sambalpur Railway Division came first in performance,” he said at an event on ‘Swachhata Hi Seva’ here on Monday.

Gupta also said the division would undertake various activities during the Swachhata Pakhwada drive from September 16 to September 30, including awareness programmes, seminars and workshops, competitions among schoolchildren, initiatives to make stations plastic-free, intensive inspection of trains to ensure on-board cleanliness.