Railways aim to mark more for capital spend

With enhanced earnings, the railways have decided to plough back some of the revenue into capital expenditure.

While the department had spent Rs 17,631 crore in investments under various Plan heads in 2005-06, this year the railways have set aside Rs 19,670 crore which is Rs 2049 crore more.

The Rail Vikas Nigam Limited turned out to be the biggest gainer as it was allocated the highest ever amount since it was incorporated in 2003. This year the government has allocated Rs 1,250 crore to the organisation.

In fact, the allocation for RVNL is the second largest spending of the railways on capital expenditure for 2006-07, after the Rs 1500 crore that has been set aside for laying of new lines.

The budget allocation for RVNL this year is almost a three-fold increase over last year's budgeted Rs 493 crore.

The enhanced allocation for RVNL is in line with the railways' focus on strengthening of Golden Quadrilateral, providing rail-based port connectivity which are the major mandates of RVNL.

One of RVNL's major ongoing projects is the construction of four mega bridges at Patna and Munger over the Ganga and in Nirmali over Kosi river in Bihar apart from one in Bogibeel in Assam, across the Brahmaputra. The estimated cost for the construction of these mega bridges is Rs 3500 crore.

According to J P Shukla, RVNL has also executed five MoUs for formation of SPVs.

These projects include a new Surat-Hazira line with the state government, Hazira Ports and Essar Steel Ltd as partners. The second project is Bharuch - Dahej gauge conversion with Adani Port and Welspun as partners apart from the state government.

Bhildi -Samdari gauge conversion with Adani Port and Kandla Port Trust. The other two projects are laying a new line on the Haridaspur-Paradip route with Orissa government, Paradip Porty, Jindal Steel and Power, Essel Mining Industries Ltd and Rungta Mines Ltd as partners.

The Obulavaripalle - Krishnapatnam line with Andhra government and Krishnapatnam Port Company Limited.