On a mission mode to become “Future Ready”, the Ministry of Railways is on its way to deliver 58 super critical and 68 critical projects worth more than Rs 1,15,000 crore in the next few years.

The Indian Railways has identified a total of 58 Super Critical Projects of a total length of 3,750 km costing Rs 39,663 crore. Out of these total 58 Super Critical Projects, 27 projects will be completed by December 2021 while remaining two projects will be handed over by March 2022. The work involves multi-tracking — that is doubling, putting on third or fourth line or both on the busy routes.

A Railway Ministry Press note said 29 Super Critical Projects of total length 1,044 Km costing Rs 11,588 cr got commissioned in last 1 year.

“It may be noted that most of the traffic of Indian Railways moves on Indian Railway network on Golden Quadrilateral, High Density Network routes and Highly Utilised Network routes. The high density and highly utilized network routes constitute 51% route length of the Indian Railways network but carries 96% of traffic,” read the statement.

Based on traffic density, type of commodity moved, importance of route from strategic considerations etc. the projects requiring urgent expansion including those which are already progressing well (expenditure already more than 60% have been categorized as Super Critical projects (58 nos) and the projects requiring completion in next stage have been defined as Critical projects (68 nos).

All are civil projects (Includes all related electrification and signalling works also).

By focussed funding and continuous monitoring these projects are targeted for early completion to reap the benefits of investment. On completion these projects will improve mobility, safety and create additional capacity for running more passenger and freight trains on these saturated and busy routes. Higher priority has been given in allocation of budget for these identified projects for early completion.