To become future ready, Indian Railways is on its way to deliver 58 super critical as well as 68 critical projects worth more than Rs 1,15,000 crore in the next few years on a mission mode. According to the Railway Ministry, as many as 29 Super Critical Projects of total length 1,044 Kilometres costing Rs 11,588 crore got commissioned in last one year. Once these projects are completed, they will improve mobility, safety as well as create additional capacity for running more freight and passenger trains on these saturated and busy railway routes. For their early completion, higher priority has been given in budget allocation for these identified projects.
Super Critical Projects: The national transporter has identified a total of 58 Super Critical Projects of a total length of 3750 kilometres, costing Rs 39,663 Crore. Of these, 27 projects will be completed by December 2021 while two projects will be handed over by March 2022. These projects include projects of multi-tracking i.e. doubling 3rd line/4th line on busy routes. Till now, as many as 29 projects of total length of 1,044 Kilometres, costing Rs 11,588 crore have been commissioned.
Critical Projects: As many as 68 critical projects of 6913 kilometres length, costing Rs 75,736 crore have been identified by Indian Railways. Out of these projects, four projects of 108 Kilometres length, costing an amount of Rs 1408 crore have been completed so far and the rest of the projects are targeted for completion by March 2024.
According to the ministry, some key capacity building projects have been delivered by Indian Railways in states like West Bengal, Assam, Uttarakhand and Maharashtra. A few of these projects are as follows:-
Assam– Indian Railways has done the commissioning of second line track on Naranarayan Setu on the river Brahmaputra of New Bongaigaon-Guwahati section, which aims to provide great relief on this railway section.
West Bengal– The national transporter has commissioned part of two doubling projects in May 2021 i.e. Katwa- Bazar Sau and Azimganj-Bazar Sau despite COVID-19 crisis and state election.
Maharashtra– In June 2021, the national transporter has commissioned a Super Critical project Bhusaval-Jalgaon third line, which removed bottleneck of this section and provided much relief for train operations in Bhusaval-Udhna and Manmad-Khandwa sections.
Uttarakhand– Doubling of Haridwar-Laksar section completed. After commissioning of this section in January 2021, entire route from New Delhi to Haridwar via Meerut, Muzaffarnagar and Roorkee has become double line. This has been done with an aim to improve punctuality on this busy route.