Centralised Apportionment System (Goods) Gets Going………..

Nalini Kak,

FA&CAO/T/ CR

Centralised Apportionment System (Goods) was inaugurated by Financial Commissioner (Rlys) on 11.3.05 signifying the end of the era of individual apportionment of Goods earnings by Zonal Railways. The apportionment results for the transactions for April 2005 have been generated centrally for all Zonal Railways through the centralised system by M/s. RITES at Gurgaon. As a measure of recognition of the hard work and efforts put in by staff of Central Railway, Financial Commissioner (Rlys) has sanctioned a cash award of Rs.25,000/-.

Essence of CAS(Goods)

Centralised Apportionment System envisages the correct system of apportionment on actual distance basis instead of distance percentage approach followed historically by Railways. The centralised apportionment system also envisages availability of actual apportioned earnings of any month to all zones by the 12^th of the following month i.e. four days after generation of Statement 7A. TCs exchanged for outward/inward shares by 18^th of the following month should be on the basis of Statement 7Cs received by all zones.

Highlights of the system developed by M/s.RITES are:

· Apportionment on actual distance basis.

· Existence of two Masters – Node to node and section to section and Concordance Table to take care of all data including monthly additions to ensure apportionment of 100% earnings.

· Division-wise apportionment feasible.

· RDBMS platform; online transaction of data and generation of monthly reports.

Outline of Effort

In order to make centralized apportionment a reality, the last one year was witness to an enormous co-ordination effort with all 16 Zonal Railways required for the preparation of the new centralized apportionment Master & apportionment program.

· Masters created after incorporation of vetted junction distance tables by all 16 zones and ABC analysis of stations having 90% earnings.

· Concordance Tables created and vetted by all zones and tested for correctness by application of 2002-03 transaction data by 9 parent zones and April ’04 data by all 16 zones with new 8 digit station codes, application of inflated distances and sidings notified as IBPs, wherever required.

· Masters and apportionment programs tested with April ‘04 data by all zones on Northern Railway with satisfactory results, variance analysis, elimination of variances and updation of Masters and Concordance Tables for all 16 zones.

· Similar action for Sept. ’04 data and April ’04 to Dec. ’04 data for refinement of apportionment Masters and Concordance Tables.

Discipline in Procedure

Further, to ensure correct apportionment, as per codal instructions and to eliminate deviations/irregularities detected on various Zonal Railways, instructions were issued to Zonal Railways to follow a disciplined approach and to ensure the following:

· Uniformity of format.

· Uniformity of station codes across IR by usage of a common Alpha Master.

· Correct Terminal and Transhipment charges to be adopted by Zonal Railways, as per latest policy circulars of Railway Board.

· Elimination of illegitimate retention of additional charges for joint stations.

· Adoption of correct policy for treatment of joint gauge stations.

· Incorporation of correct distances ensuring that distances of sidings include length of siding.

►Present Status:

Overall apportionment results generated for April ’05 transaction data are

satisfactory. Some minor variations remain on account of remaining differences in distances between certain pairs of points on some Railways and also due to non observance of procedural requirement by Zonal Railways. These have to be eliminated while processing the transaction data for May ’05 & June ’05. FA&CAO(T)s of all Zonal Railways are requested to exchange shares on the basis of centrally generated apportionment results for QE June ’05 and confirm to Director Finance(CCA), Railway Board.

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