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To boost connectivity and lower congestion on key routes, the Railways plans to double or quadruple nearly 11,000 km of the total track length of 64,000 km by 2019-20.
The target was discussed at a recent meeting chaired by the prime minister, to review infrastructure projects. The Railways, it has been decided, should focus more on doubling and quadrupling of existing lines over the next four to five years, rather than new projects, except those in the Northeast and Jammu and Kashmir. The aim is to ensure existing tracks are decongested, rather than laying new projects.
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The meeting, coordinated by the NITI Aayog, was attended by ministers from all key infrastructure sectors. It was held in two sessions and has fixed near-term and long-term targets for each sector, the progress on which is to be periodically reviewed.
Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu, in a recent interview with Business Standard, had acknowledged that with an investment plan of Rs 8.5 lakh crore over the next five years, they were focusing more on decongesting the network and improving the earning capacity.
For roads, officials said, a target of awarding around 10,000 km of new projects had been fixed for 2015-16. Under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, the ministry plans to construct around 26,000 km of rural roads in 2015-16. In ports, officials said, the meeting felt the existing target of 2,400 million tonnes of capacity by 2019-20 was good enough to handle the projected traffic of 1,600 mt. The current capacity in ports is 1,700-1,800 mt, which handles a traffic of 1,200-1,300 mt. For irrigation projects, the government is looking at bringing an additional 600,000 hectares under irrigation potential in 2015-16. Another 300,000-400,000 hectares will be created under command area development and 3.7 mn hectares brought under micro irrigation.
Vishwas Udgirkar, senior director of infrastructure at Deloitte, said: "I feel, for infrastructure projects, factors like land, detailed project reports, technical consultants, etc, are of much more importance than funding… meeting even 70-80 per cent of these targets will be a big challenge."
According to official data, 46 per cent of India's net sown area of 140.8 million hectares was under irrigation till 2011-12. In 2000-01, around 40.5 per cent of net sown area was under irrigation, a rise of 5.8 percentage points in a decade.
PM-CHAIRED MEETING TARGETS
- Railways to focus more towards doubling of lines than new projects
- To create 26,000 km of new rural roads under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana in 2015-16
- In ports, no extra capacity addition expected as existing capacity is underutilised
- Around 0.3 million hectares of land targeted to be covered by micro-irrigation in 2015-16
