Mission Raftar: Soon, travel from Delhi-Howrah in 12 hours, Piyush Goyal shares Railways' latest plan

New Delhi: The Indian railways is laying out special tracks on the Delhi-Howrah route so that the distance can be covered in 12 hours instead of 16.55 hours taken by the premium Rajdhani train currently.

In a major announcement on Friday, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said trains would run at a speed of 160 kmph on the New Delhi-Howrah route, for which a special railway line is being laid out.

This rail line will go through West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and will be a blessing for these states.

 

 

Earlier this month, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave its approval for taking up the work of raising the speed of trains to 160 Kmph on existing New Delhi-Howrah route, including Vadodara-Ahmedabad. The financial implication for the project will be around Rs 6,806.44 crore and it will be funded through extra-budgetary resources/institution financing. The project is expected to be completed in four years.

Once completed, this will also improve the average speeds of freight/passenger trains and throughput. Execution of these projects will considerably enhance safety of passengers.

As per the government, this will generate direct/indirect employment of 210 million man-days during the execution period. The project is expected to spur demand in ancillary industries and sectors such as heavy engineering, steel, cement, non-ferrous metallurgy, mining, logistics etc. 

In order to raise the speed, key inputs involve fencing, level crossing removal, upgradation of track structure, advanced/modern signalling systems, Mobile Train Radio Communication (MTRC), power supply augmentation, automated and mechanized diagnostic systems etc. which will enhance safety and reliability along with speed. The implementation will be undertaken under a fixed time fixed cost EPC contract in order to reduce delays and cost overrun while also ensuring better coordination and economies of scale.

It is worth mentioning that Delhi-Howrah and Delhi-Mumbai routes carry 29% of passenger traffic and 20% of freight traffic.