On a mission mode to become “Future Ready”, Indian Railways is on its way to deliver 58 super critical and 68 critical projects worth more than Rs 1,15,000 crore in next few years. Inspite of Covid challenges, Railways is going on rapidly to complete the projects which are vital for increasing the capacity of tracks.

According to a Railway Ministry release, 29 Super Critical Projects of total length 1,044 Km costing Rs 11,588 crore got commissioned in the last year. The national transporter has identified total of 58 Super Critical Projects of a total length of 3750 km costing Rs 39,663 crore.

Out of these total 58 Super Critical Projects, 27 projects will be completed by December 2021 while the remaining two projects will be handed over by March 2022.

It may be noted that most of the traffic of Indian Railways moves on Indian Railway network on Golden Quadrilateral, High-Density Network routes & Highly Utilized Network routes. The high density & highly utilized network routes constitute 51% route length of the Indian Railways network but carries 96% of traffic.

Based on traffic density, type of commodity moved, importance of route from strategic considerations etc. the projects requiring urgent expansion including those which are already progressing well (expenditure already more than 60%) have been categorized as Super Critical projects and the projects requiring completion in next stage have been defined as Critical projects.

By focussed funding and continuous monitoring, these projects are targeted for early completion to reap the benefits of investment. Completion of these projects will improve mobility, safety and create additional capacity for running more passenger and freight trains on these saturated and busy routes. Higher priority has been given in allocation of budget for these identified projects for early completion.

Super Critical Projects:

58 super critical projects of a total length of 3,750 km costing Rs 39663 crore have been identified. These supercritical projects are projects of multi-tracking i.e. doubling/3rd line/4th line on busy routes. With completion of these projects, Railways will be able to move more traffic at faster speed with safety on these dense/saturated/busy traffic routes. 

Till now, 29 projects of total length 1,044 Km costing Rs 11,588 crore have been commissioned. 27 projects will be completed by December 2021 and balance two projects by March 2022.

Critical Projects:

68 critical projects of total length 6913 km costing Rs 75,736 crore have been identified and out of these 4 projects of 108 Km length costing Rs 1,408 crore have been completed till date and balance projects are targeted to be completed by March 2024.

Railways has commissioned 1614 Km Doubling/ 3rd/ 4th line during FY 2020-21 despite Pandemic COVID-19. Despite the Pandemic situation again Indian Railways has commissioned 133 km doubling/ 3rd line till now, during FY 2021-22.

Railways delivered some key capacity-building projects in States like Assam, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Uttarakhand like:

• Assam: Commissioning of second line track on Naranarayan Setu on Brahmaputra river of New Bongaigaon-Guwahati section, which will provide great relief on this section.
• West Bengal: In May’2021, Indian Railways has commissioned part of two doubling projects i.e. Katwa- Bazar Sau and Azimganj-Bazar Sau in West Bengal. Both the doubling of this line is very important in view of traffic moving from Barddhaman to/ from Sahibganj for movement of coal for NTPCs TPS i.e. Farakka Super Thermal Power Station and Katwa Super Thermal Power Station (Under construction).
• Maharashtra: In June, Railways commissioned a Super Critical project Bhusaval-Jalgaon 3rd line in Maharashtra, which will remove bottleneck of this section and provided much much relief for operation of train service in Manmad-Khandwa and Bhusaval-Udhna section.
• Uttarakhand: Haridwar-Laksar Doubling:  After commissioning (in Jan’21) of this section entire route from National Capital New Delhi to Haridwar via Meerut, Muzaffarnagar & Roorkee has become double line. It will improve punctuality on this busy route.

After completion of the above Supercritical & Critical projects, more line capacity will be available for smooth movement of passenger and freight traffic on congested routes, increase speed of trains, the introduction of new train service, increased safety as maintenance margins on these busy routes will become available.