National Rail Plan:
The Government has issued the Draft Final Report of the National Rail Plan.
- The Plan aims at providing a long-term perspective planning for augmenting the Railway Network.
- Objectives of the plan:
- To create capacity ahead of demand by 2030, which in turn would cater to growth in demand right up to 2050.
- To increase the modal share of Railways from 27% currently to 45% in freight by 2030 as part of a national commitment to reduce Carbon emission and to continue to sustain it.
- To assess the actual demand in freight and passenger sectors, a yearlong survey was conducted over hundred representative locations by survey teams spread all over the country
- Forecast growth of traffic in both freight and passenger year on year up to 2030 and on a decadal basis up to 2050.
- Formulate strategies based on both operational capacities and commercial policy initiatives to increase modal share of the Railways in freight to 45% by 2030.
- Reduce transit time of freight substantially by increasing average speed of freight trains from present 22Kmph to 50Kmph.
- Reduce overall cost of Rail transportation by nearly 30% and pass on the benefits to the customers.
As part of the National Rail Plan, Vision 2024 has been launched for accelerated implementation of certain critical projects by 2024 such as:
- 100% electrification.
- Multitracking of congested routes.
- Upgradation of speed to 160 kmph on Delhi-Howrah and Delhi-Mumbai routes.
- Upgradation of speed to 130kmph on all other Golden Quadrilateral-Golden Diagonal (GQ/GD) routes.
- Elimination of all Level Crossings on all GQ/GD route.
