During this period, she has conducted inspections of all major stations, established dialogue with the principal heads of all departments and acquainted herself with their action plans to achieve targets as well as their vision for achieving further improvements. In this short period, Raghavan has also made employees expect sudden and unannounced inspections, as she did on the day of the Mumbai Marathon. While officers expected her to sit in office after the busy morning, she was out inspecting the toilets at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus.

“I am initiating a plan called ‘Own Your Station’, on an experimental basis from February 1,” she says. Under this scheme, she has deputed individual officials to inspect particular stations twice a week. Inspection schedules have already been handed out. A team of officials and staff members of different departments will follow the schedule. “They will be answerable for every thing happening at that particular station. There will be continuous inspections. Meanwhile, I will also make sudden inspections,” she says.

How does she feel about being the first woman GM of CR? “This is two-fold. First, a feeling of pride and other of responsibility. This is a challenge for me, I have to do my best,” says the no-nonsense officer of the1973 batch of the Indian Railway Accounts Service.

According to her, CR now has three priorities-punctuality of local and outstation trains, security of passengers and a clean-and-green railway. As per the recommendations of the Railway Board’s committee for security, she has expedited the hiring of closed circuit cameras and procurement of equipment like handheld metal detectors, doorframe metal detectors and X-ray scanners for CST. “By March 31, these will be available to CR,” she says.

On her first ever Mumbai posting, she says she is “watching everything” and applying fresh ideas. “Sometimes you become habituated to things and they do not affect you. I’m placing myself in the position of a commuter and trying to realise their problems.”

Top among those problems are the long queues and CR will, in February, launch its smart card service in collaboration with BEST.

“This is an easy card to use, place it on machine and it will be vaildated. Further, it may be developed for petrol pumps and parking lots too.”

The other thing commuters are awaiting keenly is the new rake. “Very soon, in the first half of February,” raghavan says on being asked when the new rakes will be run. She says the section is already saturated as far as services are concerned, so while more services will be difficult, CR will increase its capacity by 33 per cent, converting more nine-car rakes into12-car ones.

Even as she prepares for a series of inspections in February-of all five divisions of CR-she signs off: “Work, work and more work. There are mountains to climb.”

Who is Raghavan?
* She was the first lady Divisional Railway Manager of Bangalore Division and Financial Adviser & Chief Accounts Officer of Southern Railway, Eastern Railway and Rail Wheel Factory, Yelahanka.
* Before joining as General Manager of Central Railway, she was adviser (Finance), Ministry of Railways (Railway Board) at New Delhi