New Delhi: In a bid to speed up the expansion work of country’s rail network, the Ministry of Railways has decided to increase the pace of laying new track to 19 km per day from the current 7.8 km.
Railway Board Member (Engineering) VK Gupta said that Railways will be investing about Rs 80,000 crore in procurement of various ingredients like cement, steel, rail the next three years for laying tracks which will ideally result in 20,805 kms of tracks at the end of 3 years.
“Currently, we are laying the 7.8 km track per day and it will go up to 13 km per day next year. Our target is to reach 19 km per day in the fiscal 2018-19,” Gupta said.
Expansion of rail network is a major thrust for Railways as the public transporter is facing an acute congestion due to the limited line capacity. Railways has laid 1,983-km-long track in 2014-15 and it increased to 2,828 km in the next year.
There will be total 2,900 km of track in the current year and it involves gauge conversion, doubling and also laying new rail connecting new areas, he said.
The capacity augmentation exercise also aims to boost the economy as it involves procurement of rail, cement, steel, engineering and signalling equipment.
Besides, the Railways, in order to expedite the project execution, has pressed drones into service to closely monitor the progress.
“Now, we are using drones to monitor the exact progress in our project execution and it has become a very effective monitoring tool,” Gupta said.
Speaking about the expansion of Railways in North-East region, he said, “Indian Railways commissioned about 900 km of broad gauge in the last two years, leaving only about 50 km of metre gauge lines to be converted in 2016-17. In addition, a 132 km part of third alternative connectivity route to the North-East (New Maynaguri - Jogighopa) was also commissioned.”
"Udhampur-Katra (25 km) railway line in Jammu and Kashmir, Rangapara-Murkongselek and Balipara-Bhalukpong (362 km) section in Arunachal Pradesh, Lumding-Silchar (210 km) gauge conversion in Assam are some of the important railway lines commissioned in the last two years," he added.
He further said that railways was committed to bring the North-East region on the railway map.
"Passenger services have been introduced between Silchar and Agartala, thereby bringing, the capital of Tripura on broad gauge. Similarly, Dudhnoi-Mendipathar (20 km) new line has brought Meghalaya on Indian Railway broad gauge network. With the commissioning of Kathakal-Bhairabi and Arunachal-Jiribam sections, the states of Mizoram and Manipur have also come on broad gauge map of the country," he informed.
He added that railways have adopted innovative techniques in the last two years which resulted in savings of hundreds of crores.
