Finding fault at the Integrated Coaching Management System (ICMS) in railways, Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India today said the complete data of all trains is not available in the system, resulting in non-availability of train-related information in real time.
ICMS application was developed by the railways with the objective of monitoring punctuality of mail, express and passenger trains, monitoring status of coaching stock in real time and online.
ICMS also aims to facilitate augmentation of train composition, planning and running of special trains on the basis of traffic demand to maximise revenue, managing asset maintenance, minimise manual intervention and to provide fool proof service to enhance the image of railways.
CAG in its latest report has pointed out that complete data of all the trains was not available in ICMS as movement of some of the trains including extended/special trains, pilot and unscheduled trains was not reported/available in ICMS for monitoring punctuality.
The report tabled in Parliament said there were delays in capturing train movement details which resulted in non-availability of train movement information in real time to the users.
It has found that there was no provision to capture traffic demand in ICMS and the system is not integrated with Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS).
Though ICMS has been integrated with Passenger Reservation System (PRS), it does not get details of traffic demand (in the form of wait list passengers etc) from PRS. The integration of system with PRS and unreserved ticketing segment could assist railways in augmenting train composition as per the requirement of traffic demand.
Audit check at selected locations showed that railways themselves did not rely on ICMS data and various departments such as operating (coaching) department, mechanical control section and mechanical loco control section at zonal headquarters, train branch/control offices/yards and statistical department continued to use manual data for the purpose of their operations.
It has also found discrepancies in data of stations, division, yard, base depot, interchange station and sick coaches indicated inadequate application controls.
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