•The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) criticized Indian Railways for a significant drop in train punctuality, despite the introduction of semi-high-speed Vande Bharat trains.
•Punctuality fell from 90.48% in 2021-22 to 73.62% in 2023-24, with only a slight recovery to 78.67% by August 2024-25.
•The PAC highlighted that Railways consider a train 'on time' even if it's 15 minutes late at its destination, ignoring intermediate station delays, calling this 'misleading'.
•Indian Railways' average speed for passenger trains (50.6 km/h) and freight trains (23.6 km/h) falls short of its 2016-17 targets of 75 km/h and 50 km/h respectively.
•Recommendations include monitoring punctuality at intermediate stations, reducing the 15-minute buffer, and a major plan to increase average train speeds.
