| The railway ministry yesterday announced an additional outlay of Rs 20,000 crore to speed up the linking of remote and backward areas with the existing rail network under a new programme christened ‘Remote Area (or Sudoor Chhetra) Rail Sampark Yojana’.
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| Railway Minister Nitish Kumar in his Budget speech said that he was increasing the outlay since it had been found that several projects already sanctioned on socio-economic considerations.
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| With the intention of connecting the remote and backward areas to the mainstream, the projects will remain unfinished even after the next five years.
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| Pumping in more money into these projects will ensure fast execution and early completion of these projects which are plagued by funding constraints.
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| These were among several unfinished projects, involving sanctions of Rs 20,000 crore, from around 230 projects, for which Rs 43,000 crore had been sanctioned in previous Budgets.
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| The railways have a large shelf of over 230 projects worth around Rs 43,000 crore, for construction of new lines, gauge conversion, doubling, electrification and metropolitan transport projects.
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| Even with the enhanced budgetary support, non-budgetary initiatives under the National Rail Vikas Yojana and other cost sharing mechanisms apart from Defence funding of some projects, there would still be projects valuing Rs 20,000 crore that would remain unfinished even after the next five years, Kumar said.
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| The railways had sanctioned a large number of these projects to link backward remote locations of the country with the mainstream railway network since it would give an opportunity for people from these places access to developed areas and new markets, and vice versa, leading to an overall development of such areas.
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| It will facilitate the economic and social development of these areas and will provide major employment opportunities during construction, and thereafter.
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| Kumar said keeping in mind the fact that the project will open up avenues of growth for remote areas, he decided to speed up the execution by sanctioning fresh funds.
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| "It will done through an ambitious Remote Area Rail Sampark Yojana," the minister said. |
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