Indian Railways to deliver critical projects worth more than Rs 1,15,000 crores

New Delhi, India (Urban Transport News): On a mission mode to become "Future Ready", Indian Railways is on its way to deliver 58 supercritical and 68 critical projects worth more than Rs 1,1,5000 crore in the next few years.

In spite of Covid challenges, Indian Railways is going on rapidly to complete the projects which are vital for increasing the capacity of tracks.

According to Indian Railways, a total of 29 Super Critical Projects of total length 1,044 Km costing Rs 11,588 Crore got commissioned in the last 12 months.

"Indian Railways identified a total of 58 Super Critical Projects of a total length of 3750 km costing Rs 39,663 Crore. Out of these total 58 Super Critical Projects, 27 projects will be completed by December 2021 while the remaining 02 projects will be handed over by March 2022," said an official release.

It may be noted that most of the traffic of Indian Railways moves on the Indian Railway network on Golden Quadrilateral, High-Density Network routes & Highly Utilized Network routes. The high density & highly utilized network routes constitute 51% route length of the Indian Railways network but carry 96% of traffic.

Based on traffic density, type of commodity moved, the 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 the allocation of budget for these identified projects for early completion.

Super Critical Projects

58 supercritical projects of a total length of 3750 km costing Rs 39,663 Crores have been identified. These supercritical projects are projects of multi-tracking i.e. doubling/3rd line/4th line on busy routes. With the completion of these projects, Railways will be able to move more traffic at a faster speed with safety on these dense/saturated/busy traffic routes. Till now, 29 projects of total length 1,044 Km costing Rs 11,588 Crore have been commissioned. 27 projects will be completed by December 2021 and the balance 2 projects by March 2022.

Critical Projects

68 critical projects of total length 6913 km costing Rs 75,736 Crores have been identified and out of these 04 projects of 108 Km length costing Rs 1,408 Crores have been completed till date and balance projects are targeted to be completed by March 2024.

68 critical projects - anticipated cost Rs 75,736 Crores out of which Rs 37,734 Crores has been spent till March 21. The outlay for this year is Rs 14,466 Crores. 4 projects have been completed till now.

Indian Railways has commissioned 1614 Km Doubling/ 3rd/ 4th line during FY 2020-21 despite Pandemic COVID-19. Despite the Pandemic situation again Indian Railways has commissioned 133 km doubling/ 3rd line till now, during FY 2021-22.

Indian Railways delivered some key capacity-building projects in States like Assam, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Uttarakhand. 

Haridwar-Laksar Doubling:  After commissioning (in Jan’21) of this section entire route from National Capital New Delhi to Haridwar via Meerut, Muzaffarnagar & Roorkee has become a double line. It will improve punctuality on this busy route.

After completion of the above Supercritical & Critical projects, more line capacity will be available for smooth movement of passenger and freight traffic on congested routes, increase the speed of trains, the introduction of new train service, increased safety as maintenance margins on these busy routes will become available.