After the announcement of revival of Delhi’s Ring Rail service during the Rail Budget, Northern Railway has decided to formulate an action plan, along with the Delhi Government, to remove encroachments as many stations on the route are facing encroachment problems.
A railway official said for revamping Ring Railway, there may be requirement for adding another line in the network.
“Removal of the encroachments to construct approach road, developing stations with better passenger amenities are some basic requirements before launching more trains in the Ring Rail,” said Delhi Divisional Railway Manager Arun Arora adding that it has to be executed in active coordination with the Delhi Government.
Rail Budget 2016-17 has proposed to revamp the Ring Rail service in the Capital. Currently, only 10 trips are undertaken on the service in a day with an average daily ridership of about 3,700.
The 35-km-long stretch connects 21 stations, including lajpat Nagar, lodhi Colony, Sarojini Nagar, Safdarjung, Chanakyapuri, Patel Nagar, Nizamuddin and Pragati Maidan.
The need of Ring Rail was felt badly during the odd-even scheme in January. However, the ridership has continuously gone down over the years. Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu has said in Budget speech that all the 21 stations of the Ring Railways will be modernised under PPP model and the entire work plan shall come out in the next four months.
Meanwhile, Northern Railway received Rs 33,489 crore in the current Budget, 76 per cent jump from the last year, to improve passenger amenities and expand rail network in the zone. There there were setbacks in train operation due to various agitations like Gujjar and Jat stir. 2,628 train were cancelled and railway property damaged due to these agitations, officials said noting that it caused around Rs 500 crore loss to the public transporter.
The official added that the zone has initiated several green initiatives such as generation of solar power, replacement of lights with lED in stations and coaches.
Six lakh litres of diesel were saved in a month due to the electrification of busiest routes between Ghaziabad-Moradabad, Ghaziabad-Meerut. Referring to safety measures, he said that 123 ROB/RUB were constructed to eliminate unmanned level crossings in 2015-16 and a target of constructing 200 such road over-bridges and road under-bridges in the next fiscal has been set.
As far as passenger amenities are concerned several steps are being undertaken, including installation of escalators, lifts at stations, mobile charging facilities, he said. Expanding the electrical traction, Northern Railway will electrify Jammu-Katra and Haridwar-Dehradun routes in 2016-17.