Railways to raise speed on Delhi-Howrah, Delhi-Mumbai routes to 200 kmph

The estimated cost of the project will be Rs 18,000 crore

The government on Wednesday said the Indian Railways plans to develop two speed raising projects of 3,000 km on Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah routes at an estimated cost of Rs 18,000 crore. The proposed speed under these projects will be 200 kmph.

Minister of State for Railways Rajen Gohain, in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, said: "Two speed raising projects have been included in Pink Book 2017-18. The projects cover Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah routes."

He said the 1,483 km New Delhi-Mumbai (via Vadodara-Ahmedabad) route has an estimated cost of Rs 11,189 crore, and passes through seven States -- Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi.

"The 1,525 km New Delhi-Howrah route (including Kanpur-Lucknow), has an estimated cost of Rs 6,974 crore and passes through five States -- Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal," Gohain said.

The Minister also said that the principal routes of the Railways on the Golden Quadrilateral along with diagonals (Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi-Howrah, Howrah-Chennai, Chennai-Mumbai, Delhi-Chennai and Howrah-Mumbai) carry about 58 per cent of freight traffic and 52 per cent of coaching traffic with a share of approximately 15 per cent of the network, which is about 9,100 km.

Gohain also said that the total average speed up to October 2017 of all goods trains is 23.1 kmph and passenger trains is 44.4 kmph in the country.