Team News Riveting
New Delhi, February 1
A record sum of Rs 1,10,055 crore had been allotted for the Indian Railways of which Rs 1,07,100 crore is for the capital expenditure.
“I am announcing a record sum of Rs 1,10,055 crore for Railways of which Rs 1,07,100 crore is for capital expenditure only,” Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said while presenting the Union Budget 2021-22. The national transporter would monetise the Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) asset after commissioning.
Indian Railways has now highest ever total Plan capex of Rs 2,15,058 crore this year with Rs 7,500 crore from internal resources, Rs 1,00,258 crore from extra budgetary resources and Rs 1,07,100 crore for capital expenditure allocation given in the General Budget.
The Gross Budgetary allocation is Rs 37,050 crore (53 per cent) higher than BE 2020-21. Inspite of the COVID, this is remarkable vindication of the progress being made being undertaken Infrastructure projects in Indian Railways. “With this increase in Capex, Indian Railways will be the driver of Indian economy,” she added.
The thrust of Annual Plan 2021-22 is on infrastructure development, throughput enhancement, development of terminal facilities, augmentation of speed of trains, signaling systems, improvement of passengers/users’ amenities, safety works of road over/under bridges etc.
Last Financial year Indian Railways faced unprecedented COVID related challenges. Passenger services had to be stopped to prevent the spread of the virus. Indian Railways, however, kept the national supply chain running and moved great many number of migrants in the most adverse conditions.
The lockdown period was used as an opportunity by the Railways to complete more than 200 critical maintenance projects including massive track maintenance exercise, overhauling the freight business and fast tracking of the ongoing infrastructure projects like Dedicated Freight Corridors, J&K and North-East connectivity etc. In the post lockdown phase, remarkable revival in IR’s freight loading has been observed especially in the last 5 months, which shows the economic revival in the country as well as modal shift to Railways. This is due to doubling of average speed of freight trains from 23 kmph to 46 kmph, various tariff and non-tariff measures, as well as a first time ever “Freight Business Development Portal” for online booking of freight. The year is likely to close with higher loading over last year.
It may be noted that Indian Railways has prepared a National Rail Plan (NRP) for India-2030. This will be for a future ready Railways, wherein infrastructure will be created by 2030, which shall be able to cater to the demand till 2050. NRP which identifies demand and required capacity augmentation needed till 2030 also lays focus on retrieving the modal share for IR to the level of 45% by 2050 with ultimate aim to reduce logistic cost of the economy.
In the budget, it was announced that Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) and Eastern DFC are expected to be commissioned by June 2022. Further, the Finance Minister proposed the following additional initiatives to be taken up:
1. The Sonnagar – Gomoh Section (263.7 km) of Eastern DFC will be taken up in PPP mode in 2021-22. Gomoh-Dankuni section of 274.3 km will also be taken up in short succession.
2. Future dedicated freight corridor projects namely East Coast corridor from Kharagpur to Vijayawada, East-West Corridor from Bhusaval to Kharagpur to Dankuni and North-South corridor from Itarsi to Vijayawada will be undertaken. Detailed Project Reports will be undertaken in the first phase.
3. 100% electrification of Broad-Gauge routes will be completed by December, 2023. Broad Gauge Route Kilometers (RKM) electrified is expected to reach 46,000 RKM i.e., 72% by end of 2021 from 41,548 RKM on 1st Oct 2020.
While Focusing on Passenger Convenience and Safety, the budget has also proposed Introduction of the aesthetically designed Vista Dome LHB coach on tourist routes to give a better travel experience to passengers and provision of indigenously developed automatic train protection on High density network and highly utilized network routes of Indian railways. This system minimized the possibility of train collision due to human error.
