Overview
- Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Tuesday unveiled eight new measures under the ‘52 Reforms in 52 Weeks’ drive, bringing the 2026 total to 17 and tasking Indian Railways, RDSO and CRIS with next steps for implementation.
- Industry can now propose custom freight wagons under a five‑stage RDSO approval path that moves from concept review to prototype manufacture, static and dynamic rake testing and final safety certification before induction.
- The reforms allow closed, leak‑proof containers for fly ash, fertilisers, foodgrains and petroleum to reduce dust and contamination, enable top‑loading and pneumatic or side‑discharge unloading, and permit individual container drop‑off instead of detaining whole rakes.
- Contracting and container‑operator rules were tightened by requiring a 10% upfront performance security, barring bidders with litigation over 50% of net worth, mandating all‑risk and professional indemnity insurance, and creating a single pan‑India CTO licence with a ₹25 crore registration fee and paid extensions waived after 20 years.
- The ministry launched Rail Bhoomi, a CRIS platform to digitise land acquisition with live dashboards, and set a 24‑month phased rollout for QR‑coded artisan certification to standardise skills and boost construction quality while aiming to increase rail freight from its current roughly 27% modal share.