In next few years, the Indian Railways is expected to deliver 58 super critical and 68 critical projects worth more than Rs 1,15,000 crore. Even though the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak hit India, the railways continued to to complete the projects which are vital for increasing the capacity of tracks.
In the past year, 29 'super critical projects' of total length 1,044 Km costing Rs 11,588 crore have got commissioned. The railways has identified total 58 critical projects of a total length of 3750 km costing Rs 39,663 crore.Out of these total 58 projects, 27 projects will be completed by December 2021 while remaining 31 projects will be handed over by March 2022.
Most of the traffic of Indian Railways moves on Indian Railway network on Golden Quadrilateral, High Density Network routes and Highly Utilized Network routes. The high density and highly utilized network routes constitute 51% route length of the Indian Railways network but carries 96% of traffic.
These projects are targeted for early completion to reap the benefits of investment by focussed funding and continuous monitoring. 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.
Here's a look at Super Critical Projects and Critical Projects:
Super Critical Projects:
58 super critical projects of a total length of 3750 km costing Rs 39,663 crore have been identified by the railways. These supercritical projects are projects of multi-tracking i.e. doubling/3rd line/4th line on busy routes. With completion of these projects, Railways will be able to move more traffic at 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 balance 02 projects by March 2022.
Critical Projects:
68 critical projects of total length 6913 km costing Rs 75,736 crore have been identified and out of these 04 projects of 108 Km length costing Rs 1408 crore have been completed till date and balance projects are targeted to be completed by March 2024.
68 critical projects - anticipated cost Rs 75,736 crore out of which 37,734 crore has been spent till March 21. Outlay for this year is Rs 14,466 crore. 4 projects have been completed till now.
Indian Railways has commissioned 1,614 Km Doubling/ 3rd/ 4th line during financial year 2020-21 despite COVID-19. Despite the pandemic situation again Indian Railways has commissioned 133 km doubling/ 3rd line till now, during financial year 2021-22.
Indian Railways delivered some key capacity building projects in states like Assam, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Uttarakhand. A few of them are as follows:-
1) Assam -
Commissioning of second line track on Naranarayan Setu on Brahmaputra river of New Bongaigaon-Guwahati section, which will provide great relief on this section.
2) West Bengal -
A) In May’2021, Indian Railways has commissioned part of two doubling projects i.e. Katwa- Bazar Sau and Azimganj-Bazar Sau in West Bengal despite Pandemic COVID-19 and State Election.
B) Katwa- Bazar Sau and Azimganj-Bazar Sau: Both the doubling of this line is very important in view of traffic moving from Barddhaman to/ from Sahibganj for movement of coal for NTPCs TPS i.e. Farakka Super Thermal Power Station and Katwa Super Thermal Power Station (Under construction).
3) Maharashtra -
In June’21, Indian Railways has commissioned a Super Critical project Bhusaval-Jalgaon 3rd line in Maharashtra, which will remove bottleneck of this section and provided much much relief for operation of train service in Manmad-Khandwa and Bhusaval-Udhna section.
4) Uttarakhand -
Haridwar-Laksar Doubling: After commissioning (January 2021) of this section entire route from National Capital New Delhi to Haridwar via Meerut, Muzaffarnagar and Roorkee has become double line. It will improve punctuality on this busy route.
