In a major initiative to ensure expeditious implementation of ambitious Railway Infrastructure Development Plans, Ministry of Railways is organizing a “Mega Conclave” tomorrow i.e. 17thJanuary, 2018 with all stakeholders including leaders of the construction industry. The Conclave will not only see Railway Board Members and Senior Zonal Railway Officials interacting with construction industry captains but will also see Minister of Railways & Coal, Shri Piyush Goyal to have a mutual dialogue and personal interaction with the participants. The Conclave named as “NIRMAN – SAMVAAD” is being organized by Railways PSU Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd. (RVNL) which is a dedicated arm of the Ministry of Railways for fast track implementation of railway projects. The Conclave will provide an opportunity to discuss the impediments/constraints faced in implementation of the projects and to seek suggestions to remove bottlenecks and bring about efficiencies in project execution on Railways.
Senior Officers of Railway Board, Zonal Railways, CPSEs and top executives of about 400 construction and consultancy companies will be participating to deliberate upon the issues/impediments being faced by the industry and arriving at possible remedies thereof. The ambitious Infrastructure Development Projects of Indian Railways include Doubling Projects, Electrification Projects, Hill Railway Projects, Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) and High-Speed Projects on diamond quadrilateral.
Backgrounder:-
Ministry of Railways has ambitious plans for development of Rail infrastructure to meet the ever increasing transport needs of the nation and a huge investment in this sector has been planned. The main focus is on:-
- The pace of augmentation of railway network needs a quantum jump. The speed of execution of doubling/tripling and quadrupling which is about 800 kms per annum for the last 5 years, needs to be accelerated 2 to 3 times to meet the increasing demand.
- Completion of electrification of the full rail network in the next 3 to 5 years. So far out of 63000 RKM, 25201 RKM have been commissioned on electric traction till 31st March 2017. The average pace during last five years is about 1300 RKMs per annum which needs to be increased by 6 to 8 times to electrify remaining 38000 RKMs to meet the ambition of complete electrification.
- Taking up of Hill Rail Projects, including Rishikesh – Karanprayag, Char Dham rail connectivity, Bhanupalli – Bilaspur and on to Leh.
- Completion of ongoing and proposed Dedicated Freight Corridors.
- Mumbai- Ahmedabad High Speed Rail Corridor and other projects on Diamond Quadrilateral to link the major Metropolitan Cities.