In a shot in the arm for Indian Railways, the National Institution for Transforming India Aayog (NITI Aayog) has so far approved 15 of the 28 projects of the Railway Ministry related to network expansion, decongestion, terminal facilities and other amenities.
Buoyed by this, the Indian Railways has now fixed an ambitious target of commissioning 6.85 km of track per day in the current year as against the existing five km or less, of track daily.
From fast-tracking of projects to decongest choked networks to enhancing speed and punctuality of trains during the next couple of years, the Railways has earmarked a total of 77 projects involving doubling of tracks, laying of new tracks and gauge conversion in 24 of the busiest routes which include Delhi-Howrah, Delhi-Chennai, Howrah-Mumbai, Chennai- Mumbai and Delhi-Guwahati-lindung among others.
In order to reduce the gap between project conceptualisation and commissioning, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu has prioritised projects under Railways Fast Tracks Implementation of Projects.
Zonal railways have been asked to carry out Final location Surveys immediately and send Detailed Project Reports (DPR) to the Railway Board. Prabhu on Sunday received high praise from Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his role in improving the condition of Indian Railways.
“So far, approval of 15 projects of the total 28 sent has been received from NITI Aayog and we are overwhelmed.
Out of these 15 projects, four, which cost more than Rs 1,000 crore will be sent shortly to the Cabinet for approval," said Railway Board Member (Engineering) VK Gupta. Work on these projects is expected to commence in the next two months. Request for 'in-principle' approval by NITI Aayog is sent only after the DPR is examined by the Railway Board.
"Projects worth Rs 90,000 crore for 9,000 km of tracks have started to move fast on the action plan and we will be able to take it up to about 7 km per day of track," VK Gupta told The Pioneer. The Railways plans to invest over Rs 43,000 crore for network expansion and other amenities during this financial year as againt only Rs 26,600 crore investment in 2014-15 which is an increase by almost 62 per cent.
Further elaborating on enhancing the speed of trains, Gupta said that Railways is confident that during the next two to four years about 3,300-km-long dedicated freight corridor will ease pressure on the existing railway network thus ensuring greater speed of trains.
Indian Railways has also started the work of putting train sets on some major routes as announced by Prabhu in this year's Budget. Train sets accelerate and decelerate very quickly just like Metro trains, thus reducing travel time. Indian Railways is also coming out with a modern track maintenance module with a state-of-the-art technology to detect rail fracture in advance.