Published on : Thursday, October 10, 2013
Shri B. Selvam, Senior Section Engineer, Basin Bridge Junction has done Southern Railway proud by winning the prestigious PRIME MINISTER’s SHRAM VIR award for the year 2012. Shri Rakesh Misra, General Manager, Southern Railway felicitated Shri B. Selvam during a function held at Basin Bridge Train Care Centre. Shri B. Selvam joined Railways having been selected through Railway Recruitment Board in the year 1985. Since then he had shown keen interest in maintenance of the equipments and plants and exhibited leadership and innovative skills. He had been working in coaching maintenance depots at Gopal Samy Nagar and at Basin Bridge in Chennai.
He learnt the nuances of each machine and successfully improved performance by adding suitable auxiliaries. In certain cases, he used the serviceable spares from condemned equipments and rigged up new ones which enabled increased productivity and reduced the rigorous work of the staff. His efforts resulted in making available additional number of coaches for a given staff available which otherwise would not have been possible. While working as a technician in the year 1990, he developed a method for maintenance of the high pressure car washer plants working with the diesel engine. This diesel engine was required to be maintained in good fettle. The seals of the pumps and the diesel engine containers were prone to failure with intensive use.
He had devised an innovative method of maintenance of diesel engine by taking up maintenance with tell tale signs without waiting for the actual breakdown. This also avoided unnecessary over maintenance going by the average period of utilization. He had maintained very critical equipments used for lifting of coaches. He got selected as Supervisor. He then concentrated on his supervision of the maintenance of the Rolling Stock. His scope of work changed and in his supervisory role, he mastered his work. In the year 2000, the Gopal Samy Nagar Coaching Depot faced a crisis as the Meter Gauge track was getting convered as Broad Guage. The equipments became redundant and not usable as they were not designed for the Rolling Stock of the Broad Gauge. He had salvaged specific components from the Machinery & Plants such as compressors, pumps, jacks, etc and rigged up new equipments suitable to be utilized for the Broad Gauge track and also helped in commissioning of the new equipments procured for the Broad Gauge Rolling Stock.
Shri Selvam had supervised work on the coach ‘Southern Queen’ for the All India Crashworthy Coach Competition and due to his efforts as a part of the team, the coach won the title. He had made a sliding door arrangement for easy entry and exit of passengers, particularly in the toilets. This modification was acclaimed as one of the best modifications and it was awarded 3rd best innovative modification during the year by Railways. Shri Selvam had rigged up the maintenance facility for maintenance of Meter Guage coaches at Tambaram as maintenance of meter gauge coaches was shifted from Egmore to Tambaram. With his contribution the depot was able to take up the maintenance without loss of quality even with less manpower.
The measurement of buffer height of coaches when the train is getting attached to a loco poses a serious problem whenever shortage of skilled manpower as skilled labour is required for the work. He developed a simple mechanism for measuring the height which gives audio and light signal in case the buffer height is less than that required and this innovation enabled utilization of staff of less skill without loss of accuracy. In the year 2009 he developed a gadget for indicating the application of hand brake which is left applied inadvertently by the staff, which in many cases had resulted in enroute detention of coaches due to non-release of hand brake. His efforts helped the Railways to handle one of the toughest menaces it faced – eradication of cockroaches, bed bugs from the coaches. As per the diagram given, the efforts of the Railways were not reaching the small crevices of the coach. He had analyzed this problem by the use of a pencil camera and determined the need for circulating the various chemicals and confining the coach in a proper place to avoid dilution. His innovative method of circulation of the dose and confinement of the coach helped in completely eradicating these in the coaches.
The coaches were free from pests for as long as six months in some cases and for four months on average.His contribution in devising the method and rigging up the equipments was immense. This has increased productivity, reduced cost and eliminated problems.This award carries Rs. 60,000/- in cash with certificate. Shri S.K. Sood, Chief Mechanical Engineer, Southern Railway, Shri P.K. Mishra, Divisional Railway Manager, Chennai Division, Senior Officers and staffs were present on the occasion.
Tags: Railway News, Shri B. Selvam, Southern, southern railway
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