1,000 km rail lines planned

92% increase in outlay on new lines to Rs 9,583 crore for the year.

Although the Indian Railways is likely to miss its current year’s target of adding 1,000 km new lines by 30 per cent, it has set up yet another ambitious target of adding 1,000 km new lines in financial year 2011-12. Also, it has increased the outlay on new lines by 92 per cent to Rs 9,583 crore for the year.

The outlay for gauge conversion has been increased by over eight per cent to Rs 2,776 crore for conversion of 1,017 km. The outlay on doubling of lines has been raised from Rs 2,204 crore to Rs 5,406 crore. The Rail Ministry has set a target to double lines running up to 867 km.

West Bengal, which will face Assembly polls soon, has clearly emerged as the biggest gainer of other new projects. The railways on Friday proposed to set up a metro coach factory at Singur, an industry for production of large on-track machines and a new track machine, POH facility, at Uluberia. The state will also get a rail industrial park at Jellingham. The park will be a cluster of diverse industrial units whose output will be consumed by the railways. A unit to manufacture car steel bogies and couplers through a joint venture between Burn Standard and SAIL has already been initiated in this park.

The railways will set up a bridge factory in Jammu & Kashmir, a diesel locomotive centre in Manipur and two more wagon units under joint venture/public-private-partnership mode — one each at Kolar and Alappuzha in Kerala, and another one in Buniadpur. They also plan to set up a 700-megawatt gas-based power plant at Thakurli in Maharashtra.

In order to fund the socially-desirable projects during the 12th Plan, the Railway Budget proposed to set up a new scheme — Pradhan Mantri Rail Vikas Yojana. To fast-track implementation of projects, the Budget also proposed setting up of a Central Organisation for Project Implementation. The body will ensure uniformity of systems and methodologies, follow best practices and optimise on resources.