New Delhi: The National Rail Plan (NRP) aims to develop the capacity and infrastructure of India's railways to meet the growing demand of the transport sector up to 2050. Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw highlighted that this initiative will involve building capacity by 2030 to ensure the rail network can handle future increases in freight and passenger traffic.
The plan focuses on enhancing rail freight's share, improving connectivity and modernising the railway infrastructure to support economic growth and sustainability. Highlighting the NRP objectives, Vaishnaw said to create a ‘future ready’ railway system, NRP aims to formulate strategies based on both operational capacities and commercial policy initiatives to increase railway modal share up to 40 to 45 per cent.
The capacity creation as per NRP aims to make Indian Railways more efficient, cheaper, safer, greener and of global standard, which would provide better passenger and freight services to the people of the country.
“The objective of the plan is to “create capacity ahead of demand”, which in turn would cater to the future growth in the transport sector up to 2050. NRP mainly focuses on estimation of rail freight share, demand forecast, rail network demand, capacity utilisation and identification of bottlenecks, reduction in transit time of freight by increasing the average speed of freight trains,” Vaishnaw said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.
“Identification of future Dedicated Freight Corridors, High-Speed Rail Corridors, High-Density Networks and Highly Utilised Networks, assessment of rolling stock and locomotives requirements for passenger and freight traffic and the total capital investment,” the minister informed.
As of April 1, 2024, a total of 53 railway projects (24 new lines, 1 gauge conversion and 28 doublings) of a total length of 4,230 km, costing Rs 73,555 crore in East Central Railway are in planning, approval and construction stages, out of which 934 km length has been commissioned and an expenditure of Rs 24,043 crore has been incurred up to March 2024, Vaishnaw informed.
“The completion of any railway project depends on various factors like a quick land acquisition by the State Government, forestry clearance by officials of the forest department, shifting of infringing utilities, statutory clearances from various authorities, geological and topographical conditions of the area, law and order situation in the area of the project site, number of working months in a year for particular project site due to climatic conditions. All these factors affect the completion time of the project,” the minister said.
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