The Indian railways has made a supplementary demand for grants for expenditure of the central government on railways to the tune of Rs 526 crore. The fund will be utilised to meet the additional requirement to execute certain projects identified as national projects. These will also fund certain ?out of turn? works during 2008-09, which are regarded as new services.
A few among the national projects are 290-km new line between Udhampur- Srinagar-Baramula at an investment of Rs 316 crore. A new 109 km new line between Kumarghat and Agartala at Rs 37 crore. Also, new lines between Jiribam-Imphal at Rs 17 crore and a bridge with linking lines between Dibrugarh and North Bank at Rs 58 crore will be funded through the grant.
Among the major works for which the supplementary grant has been demanded include system of online monitoring of the rolling stock, escalators at major stations of the Indian railways, and revival of Bharat Wagon and Engineering Ltd (BWEL), among others.
For the online monitoring of rolling stock at almost 50 locations in various zones of the railways, funds to the tune of Rs 1,30,000 have been demanded. The work involves development pf proactive rolling stock asset management system for keeping track of heath of rolling stock, especially wagons.
For the takeover of BWEL, with an outlay of Rs 18.66 crore during 2008-09, a token supplementary grant of Rs 20,000 is being sought to start the work immediately. Rs 10,000 has been demended out of planned outlay of Rs 1 lakh for 2008-09 for escalators at major stations.