'National Rail Plan 2030 report to be out in Dec'

The Indian Railways will come with the National Rail Plan 2030 by this December, Informed the Railway Board Chairman and CEO, Vinod Kumar Yadav. Railways will share a booklet of all the projects, that will be done till March 2024, to the Zonal Railways in the next 2 weeks.

New Delhi:Railway Board Chairman and CEO Vinod Kumar Yadav informed on Thursday, that the draft report of National Rail Plan 2030 has already been prepared and the final report will be released in December 2020.

While addressing the media, Yadav said, "The primary aim of National Rail Plan 2030 is that we have done a traffic projection for different parts of the country in the upcoming years, while considering all the industrial projects whose work is underway or being planned for the near future. We are working to expand the railway network so that we would be able to handle the railway traffic as per the requirement in 2030."

He further explained, "We have also prepared a blueprint for the year 2024. It has happened for the very first time, that we have already fixed the target as well as set the yearly budget of all the projects which will be done till March 2024."

Railways will share a booklet of all the projects, that will be done till March 2024, to the Zonal Railways in the next 2 weeks.

These projects will also include the doubling of Railway tracks, electrification of Railways, completion of Dedicated Freight corridor, 51 projects of coal movement and many others.

The Railway official also informed that revenue from freight operations up to October 13 has witnessed a jump of 11% as compared to the same period of last year. The jump has specifically being noticed in the loading of 126 automobile rakes, which is an increase of over 68 per cent.

When asked about the disruption in rail services due to the protests by farmers of Punjab, Yadav replied that the services will resume when the situation returns to normalcy.

He said, "We are monitoring the situation and are constantly in touch with the state government and the Home Ministry on this issue. At any power plant, the situation is not so critical and whenever we feel the situation is conducive, we will resume services."