Indian Railways to invest ₹21,000 crores in electrification of routes by 2023-24

New Delhi, India (Urban Transport News): Indian's national transporter Indian Railways has decided to undertake electrification of Broad Gauge Railway lines in mission mode. Significant progress has already been made in this regard and Indian Railways is likely to electrify all Broad Gauge rail lines by 2023-24.

As of 1st April 2020, the total length of the entire Indian railways' network (all Gauges) is 67,956 Route kilometres.

According to Indian Railways, as of 1st April 2021, 484 Railway projects of 51,165 km length, costing approx. Rs 7.54 lakh crore are in different stages of planning/sanction/execution, out of which 10,638 km length has been commissioned and an expenditure of Rs. 2,13,815 crore has been incurred up to March 2021. The projects include:-

• 187 New line projects of 21,037 km length, costing Rs 4,04,986 crore, out of which commissioning of 2,621 km length has been achieved and expenditure of Rs 1,05,591 crore has been incurred up to March 2021.
• 46 Gauge Conversion projects of 6,213 km length, costing Rs. 53,171 crore, out of which commissioning of 3,587 km length has been achieved and expenditure of Rs 22,184 crore has been incurred up to March 2021.
• 251 Doubling projects of 23,915 km length, costing Rs 2,96,186 crore, out of which commissioning of 4,430 km length has been achieved and expenditure of Rs 86,041 crore has been incurred up to March 2021.

"Completion of a Railway project(s) depends on various factors like an expeditious land acquisition by State Government, forest clearance by officials of the forest department, shifting of infringing utilities, statutory clearances from various authorities, geological and topographical conditions of the area, law and order situation in the area of the project site, number of working months in a year for particular project site due to climatic conditions, etc. and all these factors affect the completion time," said the statement issued by Ministry of Railways.

About Rs 21,000 crores are estimated to be incurred on electrification of balance Broad Gauge routes of Indian Railways.

As per the data shared by the Ministry, Indian Railways' annual consumption of Electricity for traction purposes is about 18.41 billion units during 2019-20 and 14.1 billion units during 2020-21. The estimated electricity consumption after complete electrification of Railway tracks shall be 30.13 billion units.