Indian Railways to roll out projects worth Rs 90,000 cr in coming months

New Delhi, Oct 31 (KNN) Union minister for railways Ashwini Vaishnaw on Sunday said that the Ministry of Railways will roll out projects worth Rs 90,000 crore in the coming months to remove bottlenecks in the movement of freight.

Speaking at the 17th Foundation Day of Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Ltd (DFCC), Vaishnaw said “By now, we have identified projects worth Rs 90,000 crore to remove all potential bottlenecks in the movement of freight. The projects will be sanctioned in the coming months, and will help us realise the aspiration of loading 3,000 million tonnes (mt) of goods.”

The railway ministry at the beginning of the year had rolled out a Rs 1.5-trillion procurement plan to augment railway performance. The new projects are being closely supervised by Railway Board Chairman V K Tripathi.

“The prime minister sincerely believes that the only way to transform the Indian economy is to transform Indian Railways,” he said.

Under mission 3000, the national transporter intends to double its cargo loading from 1,418 mt in 2021-22 to 3,000 mt by 2027. It is widely understood that dedicated freight corridors (DFCs) will play a key role in this endeavour, a report in Business Standard stated.

So far, 56 per cent of the two DFCs of the railways are operational, with completion of a majority of the network expected by 2023.

“Through the support of the railway officials, we were able to get an additional Rs 12,000 crore from the Centre for this financial year. Now, we should aim to reach at least Rs 2 trillion as the capital support from the general budget for railways,” Vaishnaw said.

The ministry of railways was allocated Rs 1.37 trillion as budgetary support in the Union Budget for 2021-22.

Addressing the ceremony, DFCC Managing Director R K Jain said a new state-of-the-art command centre for the western dedicated freight corridor (WDFC) will soon be launched at Ahmedabad, which will give a fillip to crucial industrial goods traffic of the country. WDFC connects to significant ports such as Mundra, Kandla, and Pipavav.

Business Standard had previously reported that the Centre may axe the three new DFCs to enhance existing corridors and make smaller focused routes branching out of the existing eastern and western DFCs.  (KNN Bureau)