'Indian Railways require massive investments till 2032'
Indian railways would require investments worth about 32 lakh crores till 2032, according to the National Transport Development Policy Committee. “We need to increase the investment 3-5 times,” said the Indian Railways’ Advisor-Infrastructure Girish Pillai at the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). As part of the Indian Railways’ five-year Action Plan, the government aims to increase the share of rail freight transport on its network from current 30-35% to 50%, on the lines of the US, Russia and China. Currently, 65% of Indian trains are dedicated to passenger movements, which contribute less than 30% of the total revenue, while remaining 70% of its revenue is covered by about 35% of freight trains. He pointed out that railway traffic and passenger volumes have almost doubled in the last decade. “The Indian railways would need additional 20,000 track kilometres in the next five years, have to double the progress of electrification of tracks (10,000 km) and introduce train set technologies,” he said in a statement In the 2015-16 railways budget, the Ministry of Railway had announced a Rs 8,560-billion five-year action plan to upgrade the Indian rail network. Some of the major areas of the work included “initiatives for network decongestion, development of freight corridors, safety works in terms of track renewal, signaling and level-crossing”. Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu had set out an investment plan of Rs.8.5 trillion for a substantial expansion in passenger and freight capacity for the Indian railways, over the next five years. Pillai said Indian railway was looking to complete Eastern and Western Corridors by 2019. Out of the 10,000 hectares of required land to complete the expansion, nearly 9,000 hectares has already been acquired.
September 18, 2015 | 6:37pm IST.
to success.