Reorganisation of Indian Railways has been carried out from time to time keeping in view the administrative and operational requirements. A Committee was constituted in 2012 to examine requests for creation of new zones and divisions. The Committee in its report, concluded that none of the requests for creation of new zones and divisions is feasible.
New Zones and Divisions on Indian Railways are set up keeping in view various factors like size, workload, accessibility, traffic pattern and other operational/ administrative requirements, consistent with the needs of economy and efficiency. The Zones and Divisions on Indian Railways are neither based on the State/District boundaries nor are created on the basis of regional/geographical considerations.
The said Committee was constituted to analyse the large number of requests, which had been received from various State Governments, Union Ministers, Members of Parliament/MLAs, etc. for the creation of new Zones and Divisions on Indian Railways, from various angles of railway working like operational, financial, administrative and staff related issues etc. and examine the feasibility of creation of the proposed new Zones/Divisions. The Committee had submitted its report after examining the requests from these angles. This Press Release is based on the information given by the Minister of State for Railways Shri Rajen Gohain in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha on 16 November 2016, Wednesday.