Railway travellers can vouch train delays are extremely common, making long-distance journeys particularly painful in the country. Almost 30 per cent of the trains were late in the financial year 2017-18, according to official data. The Railways has now decided to address this problem, but only on paper.

According to reports, the Railways has decided to change the train timetable of around 200 trains altogether to compensate for the declining on-time performance. This will not affect the number of hours passengers actually spend on the train.

In the recent past, the Railways have reported 40 per cent decline in train punctuality. Embarrassed with such delays, the Railways had also started a 15-day drive to ensure punctuality of trains in May.

According to a report published in the Indian Express, the Southern Railway and the Northern Railway have pushed their train timings by up to one hour. The ministry is yet to give post-facto approval to the Southern Railway and the Northern Railway has also approached the Railway Board with the rescheduled train timings.

Southern Railway, which is headquartered at Chennai and comprises six railway divisions, has increased the total run-time from 30 minutes to an hour for as many as 90 trains. Northern Railway that comprises five divisions of Ambala, Delhi, Ferozpur, Lucknow and Moradabad has also pushed the train timings by 30 to 60 minutes for total 95 trains.

The Railway Ministry officials are of the view that trains are delayed because of maintenance works being done at massive scale. These works affect train punctuality, which is why the ministry has decided to extend the train arrival time. Both mail and express trains have been running behind scheduled time because of over 15 lakh maintenance blocks that were put in 2,687 locations in 2016-17. This rose to 18 lakh in 2017-18 with maintenance work in 4,426 locations.

Considering the large-scale changes in train timings, the railway ministry has asked the zones to explain how the new changes will be implemented. The extension of timings would, however, affect the average time of these trains, especially 'superfast' trains.

"We have done this because many trains were getting delayed due to ongoing engineering work on tracks. By extending the official run-time in the timetable, people will not be inconvenienced," said RK Kulshreshta, General Manager, Southern Railway, told the newspaper. He added that the step has been taken to facilitate people. "If the timetable shows a train is to reach at 8 (am/pm), and it regularly reaches at 9 (am/pm), there's no point. So it's better to show the official arrival time like that," said the official.

While the year 2015-2016 recorded 77.4 per cent punctuality of trains, the subsequent years have seen a drop in that figure with 76.69 per cent in 2016-17 and 71.39 per cent in 2017-18.