Railways eliminated 1,035 manned level crossings during Apr-Dec 2019, a jump of 190 pc

The Railways eliminated 1,035 manned level crossings across its network during April-December 2019, a jump of 190 per cent over the corresponding period the year before, official data shows.

The number stood at 357 for the April-December period in 2018, according to the data.

The national transporter has set a target of eliminating 2,568 level crossings on the Golden Quadrilateral and Diagonals by 2023.

The Railways has proposed to sanction road-over-bridges and road-under-bridges in places where the MLCs will be eliminated.

In its road map document, the railways has stated that RUBs with water drainage system will be preferred as they are shorter in route and can be implemented faster.

The entire cost of such projects would be borne by the national transporter with a Rs 50,000 crore corpus from the Centre over the next four years.

There are a little over 19,000 manned level crossings in the country as of now.

Another set of data shows, the Railways produced 4,484 LHB coaches in April-December 2019 compared to 3,121 in April- December 2018 which is a jump of almost 44 per cent.

The Railways plans to produce 4,079 coaches in 2020-21 and has set a target of constructing 275 foot over bridges in the same period.