Railway Minister unveils National Rail Plan-2030 to set up 'future ready railway system'

Minister of Railways, Communications and Electronic & Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha said that the NRP is aimed to formulate strategies based on both operational capacities and commercial policy initiatives to increase modal share of the Railways in freight to 45%.

Hyderabad:Indian Railways on Friday announced the National Rail Plan (NRP) for India – 2030 in a bid to “create a future-ready Railway system by the said year.

Minister of Railways, Communications and Electronics & Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha said that the NRP is aimed to formulate strategies based on both operational capacities and commercial policy initiatives to increase the modal share of the Railways in freight to 45%. The objective of the Plan, he said, is to create capacity ahead of demand, which in turn would also cater to future growth in demand right up to 2050 and also increase the modal share of Railways to 45% in freight traffic and to continue to sustain it.

To achieve this objective all possible financial models including Public-Private Partnership (PPP) are being considered, he said.

The spokesman further said that with the Indian Railways is the growth engine of the nation, NRP is aimed to reform Railways to make it more efficient, greener, and modern which will translate into cheaper, safer, and assured mode of transport to the common man be it in passenger or freight segment. To achieve this objective, the following main features of the National Rail Plan have been identified: Formulate strategies based on both operational capacities and commercial policy initiatives to increase the modal share of the Railways in freight to 45%. Reduce transit time of freight substantially by increasing the average speed of freight trains to 50Kmph.

As part of the National Rail Plan, Vision 2024 has been launched for accelerated implementation of certain critical projects by 2024 such as 100% electrification, multi-tracking of congested routes, up-gradation of speed to 160 mph on Delhi-Howrah and Delhi-Mumbai routes, up-gradation of speed to 130 mph on all other Golden Quadrilateral-Golden Diagonal (GQ/GD) routes and elimination of all Level Crossings on all GQ/GD route. Identify new Dedicated Freight Corridors. Identify new High-Speed Rail Corridors.

Assess rolling stock requirement for passenger traffic as well as wagon requirement for freight. Assess Locomotive requirement to meet twin objectives of 100% electrification (Green Energy) and increasing freight modal share. Assess the total investment in capital that would be required along with a periodical break up.

Sustained involvement of the Private Sector in areas like operations and ownership of rolling stock, development of freight and passenger terminals, development/operations of track infrastructure, etc.