The East Coast Railways (ECoR) has been allocated Rs 6,000 crore for the different sanctioned projects and another Rs 1,000 crore is likely to be sanctioned for the financial year 2018-19, said ECoR General Manager Umesh Singh at a Press meet here on Friday.
Singh said the ECoR has an expenditure of Rs 3,300 crore in the last FY 2017-18 with 13.21 per cent increase compared to the 2016-17 FY.
Speaking about the major commissioning of projects during 2017-18, he said the ECoR has laid new lines of 11.30 km, completed doubling projects of about 204 km, electrification of about 324 km and automatic signaling of 28 km within its jurisdiction.
Besides, seven intermediate block signaling works, grid separation at Cuttack for simultaneous reception of trains from Paradip and Howrah side and 66 limited Height Subways (lHS) works were completed, he added.
Keeping focus on the punctuality of the commuter trains, the ECoR has taken initiative for advancing timing by 15 minutes hauling by two engines for faster train movement for the Bhubaneswar- Balangir Express (12893/12894), increased speed of 43 trains and made five Mail/Express trains superfast.
like other metropolitan cities, the ECoR would introduce its first Mainline Electric Multiple Unit (MEMU) train from Brahmapur to Bhadrak by Rath Yatra, said Singh.
Making conveniences for the passengers, the ECoR has started its work for the six meter-wide foot over bridges (FOB) at Bhubaneswar and Bhadrak and has aimed to complete the work by June this year. Similarly, the six-meter FOBs have been proposed for Cuttack and Vizianagaram in 2018-19.
Singh said 59 stations under the ECoR jurisdiction were made high speed Wi-Fi zones including more than 20 tribal area stations and new FOBs were completed at 14 stations.
As railway are being delayed in the country, the restoration work at the bridge 249 on KK line between Visakhapatnam-Koraput was completed in record time of 58 days. Singh said the Khorda- Puri green corridor work would be completed by June.
The ECoR has record highest loading in the Indian Railways by its freight performance of 182.73 MT in 2017-18. For transportation 1,279 long haul trains were plying during the FY.
Asked about the proposals in the 2018-19, Singh said works like improvement of circulating area at Bhadrak, and development of Adarsh Stations at Barpali, Deogaon Road and loisinga would be done.
Besides, second FOBs with ramp facility at Jajpur, Keonjhar Road, first FOBs at different stations and facilities for divyang passengers would be done.