Indian Railways: Milestones and Obstacles

Indian Railways: Milestones and Obstacles

Question: Railways is a key infrastructural sector in the Indian economy. Discuss its latest milestones and obstacles.

Milestones

• Indian Railways has carried out the largest number of capacity enhancement projects such as gauge conversion and doubling in recent times; total track km has increased

• Indian Railways has increased its broad gauge network for more than 2.5 times since independence

• Major Sections commissioned in 2014-15 include the following:

- Udhampur-Katra completed – Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine on Railway map.
- Meghalaya on Railway Network – Commissioning of Dudhnoi-Mendipathar new line.
- Commissioning of Lumding – Silchar section, bringing Barak Valley on Broad Gauge Network
- Entire North Bank of Brahmaputra on Broad Gauge – Rangia-Murkongselek project
- Koderma – Hazaribagh New Line
- Gorakhpur-Gonda loop gauge conversion
- Guna-Gwalior-Etawah Project
- Kanpur-Kasganj-Mathura & Kasganj-Bareilly gauge conversion

• Currently there are 429 ongoing network expansion projects needing INR 3.45 lakh for completion

• 82 of these have been included in Budget 2015-2015 for enhancing the capacity of Indian Railways

• MoU has been signed to raise loan of 1.5 lakh crore with LIC and INR 36,000 crore provided for these projects

• Adarsh station schemes are being worked out

• Online applications made possible for permission for track crossings

• Rail and weld fractures have come down by 19% in 2014 -2015 as against the year before it
• Induction and use of IT systems, web based applications and telemetry are being carried out to ensure track safety

• Web based Track Maintenance and Management has been initiated along with IT based Bridge Management System

• Land bank database has been created in Land Management System-IRLAMS

• Online clearance for roads over bridges , roads under bridges, private sliding, cable/pipeline crossings, bridges etc has been initiated

Obstacles

• Indian Railways has added only 12,000 km since independence from 53596 km to 65808 km

• Route kms have not risen significantly since independence

• India has rail network density of 2 km per 100 sq.km while China’s is 1 km per 100 sq.km

• While India’s rail network density is 5.44 per lakh population, China’s is 6.89 km per lakh population

• Several projects have been held up due to lack of clearance or small inputs

• Indian railways has a high number (10,440) of unmanned level crossings of which 7414 were on Broad. Only 5905 unmanned level crossings have been removed in as much as past 5 years while 1148 unmanned level crossings were eliminated in 2014-2015

• In the past 5 years (2010-2015) only 1114 Roads over bridges and 3513 roads under bridges/subways have been constructed

Facts and Stats

• In 2014-15, Indian Railways commissioned 1983 kms of Broad Gauge network expansion projects

• This includes 380 kms New Lines, 880 kms Gauge Conversion and 723 kms Doubling.

• Indian Railways is the largest public sector employer in India