"With great power comes great responsibility". The words inspired Spiderman -- as well as Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, who today said his recent moves to delegate power across all levels of the rail network were inspired by the dialogue in a Spiderman film.
The delegation of power would eventually lead to an improvement in the work culture in the Railways, Goyal told reporters here.
"If I have to summarise, the move to delegate powers and to increase the confidence of people so much that they work properly at their level... the inspiration (for this) comes from a Spiderman movie where it is said 'with great power comes great responsibility'", he said.
In the movie, Uncle Ben's words to Peter Parker inspire him to become the superhero Spiderman.
In the last three weeks, Goyal has empowered general managers to sanction out-of-turn safety-related works within financial limits set out by the Ministry of Finance.
Divisional regional managers have been given powers to re-engage retired Railway employees up to 62 years of age against vacancies.
"Our effort is to empower the Railway family at all levels. I'm very confident that with this empowerment there will be far greater responsibility and sensitivity. We will certainly see a lot of improvement in the working of the Railways," he said.
Enhanced powers for the repair of track machines have been given to field officers for faster track safety work, while junior field officers and supervisors have been provided with multi-utility vehicles.
DRMs can sanction waiting halls, platform shelter, lifts or escalators and other amenities and enter into contracts that would add to the Railways' earnings.
Goyal said the delegation of powers would ensure work is done within a time-frame, specially in areas of safety and basic amenities, without the delay caused by seeking approvals.
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