Encroachments to be removed to revamp Delhi's Ring Rail

After the budget announced revival of Delhi's Ring Rail service, Northern Railways along with the Delhi government will undertake an action plan to remove encroachments in a bid to revamp the public transporter in the national capital.
Modalities have to be worked for revamping Ring Railway and there may be requirement for adding another line in the network, Delhi Divisional Railway Manager Arun Arora said here today.
Many stations on the route are facing encroachment problems and it has to be tackled first. An action plan is required to handle the situation arising out of the encroachments along Ring Rail, he said.

Rail Budget 2016-17 has proposed to revamp the Ring Rail service in the capital to increase the ridership.
Currently, only 10 trips are undertaken on the service in a day with an average daily ridership of about 3,700.
Northern Railway General Manager AK Puthia said, "It has to be executed in active coordination with the Delhi government. We will work out a plan in consultation with the Delhi government."

The 35-km-long stretch connects 21 stations, including Lajpat Nagar, Lodhi Colony, Sarojini Nagar, Safdarjung, Chanakyapuri, Patel Nagar, Nizamuddin and Pragati Maidan.
Removal of the encroachments to construct approach road, developing stations with better passenger amenities are some basic requirements before launching more trains in the Ring Rail, Arora said.

The need of Ring Rail was felt badly during the odd-even car number rule in January. However, the ridership has continuously gone down over the years.
Meanwhile, Northern Railway received Rs 33,489 crore in
the current Budget, 76 per cent jump from the last year, to improve passenger amenities and expand rail network in the zone.
Puthia said there were setbacks in train operation due to various agitations like Gujjar and Jat stir.
2,628 train were cancelled and railway property damaged due to these agitations, he said noting that it caused around Rs 500 crore loss to the public transporter.

He said the zone has initiated several green initiatives such as generation of solar power, replacement of lights with LED in stations and coaches.
Six lakh litres of diesel were saved in a month due to the electrification of busiest routes between Ghaziabad-Moradabad, Ghaziabad-Meerut.
Referring to safety measures, Puthia said 123 ROB/RUB were constructed to eliminate unmanned level crossings in 2015-16 and a target of constructing 200 such road over-bridges and road under-bridges in the next fiscal has been set.
As far as passenger amenities are concerned several steps are being undertaken, including installation of escalators, lifts at stations, mobile charging facilities, he said.

Expanding the electrical traction, Northern Railway will electrify Jammu-Katra and Haridwar-Dehradun routes in 2016-17.