By Our Correspondent
NEW DELHI/BHUBANESWAR: Union Minister of Railways, Communications and Electronic & Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha on Wednesday said that as on 01.04.2021, 20 Projects costing Rs.74,485 crore for 2,011 km length falling fully/partly in North Eastern Region are under different stage of planning/ approval/ execution, out of which 321 km length has been commissioned and an expenditure of Rs. 26,874 crore incurred upto March, 2021. These include-
14 New Line Projects covering a length of 1,181 km at a cost of Rs 56,553 crore, out of which 253 km length has been commissioned and an expenditure of Rs 23,994 crore incurred upto March, 2021. 6 Doubling Projects covering a length of 830 km at a cost of Rs 17,932 crore, out of which 68 km length has been commissioned and an expenditure of Rs 2,880 crore incurred upto March, 2021.
During 2014-21, 1356 km projects (270 km of New Line, 972 km of Gauge Conversion and 114 km of Doubling) falling fully/partly in North Eastern Region have been commissioned at an average rate
193.71 km per year, which is 94% more than average commissioning during 2009-14 (66.6 km/year). For financial year 2021-22, total Budget outlay of Rs 6,913 crore has been provided for infrastructure and safety works falling fully/ partly in North Eastern Region, which is 226% more with respect to average annual budget outlay of 2009-14 (Rs 2,122 crore/year). Average annual Budget allocation for these projects during 2014-19 has been enhanced to Rs 5,531 crore per year from Rs 2,122 crore per year during 2009-14, which is 161% more than average annual budget outlay of 2009-14 and budget outlay of Rs 4,669 crore was provided for these projects for financial year 2020-21 which is 120% more than average annual budget outlay of 2009-14. Funds are allotted project-wise on yearly basis, based on requirement projected by the Zonal Railways depending upon progress of the work subject to availability of funds.
Indian Railways (IR) has decided to undertake electrification of Broad Gauge (BG) Railway lines on mission mode. Significant progress has already been made in this regard and IR is electrifying all BG rail lines expeditiously.
As on 01.04.2020, total length of entire Indian Railways’ network (all Gauges) is 67,956 Route kilometer.
As on 01.04.2021, 484 Railway projects of 51,165 km length, costing approx. Rs.7.54 lakh crore are in different stages of planning/sanction/execution, out of which 10,638 km length has been commissioned and an expenditure of Rs.2,13,815 crore has been incurred upto March, 2021. These include:-
187 New line projects of 21,037 km length, costing Rs. 4,04,986 crore, out of which commissioning of 2,621 km length has been achieved and expenditure of Rs.1,05,591 crore has been incurred upto March, 2021.
46 Gauge Conversion projects of 6,213 km length, costing Rs. 53,171 crore, out of which commissioning of 3,587 km length has been achieved and expenditure of Rs.22,184 crore has been incurred upto March, 2021.
251 Doubling projects of 23,915 km length, costing Rs. 2,96,186 crore, out of which commissioning of 4,430 km length has been achieved and expenditure of Rs.86,041 crore has been incurred upto March, 2021.
Completion of a Railway project(s) depends on various factors like expeditious land acquisition by State Government, forest clearance by officials of forest department, shifting of infringing utilities, statutory clearances from various authorities, geological and topographical conditions of area, law and order situation in the area of project site, number of working months in a year for particular project site due to climatic conditions etc. and all these factors affect the completion time. About Rs. 21,000 crores are estimated to be incurred on electrification of balance Broad Gauge routes of Indian Railways.
