The interim budget has allocated Rs 2,554 billion to the Ministry of Railways, which is about 5 per cent higher than the revised estimate (Rs 2,433 billion) for 2023-24.
Segment-wise, Rs 44.92 billion has been allotted to signalling and telecommunications, Rs 410.86 billion to rolling stock, Rs 360.91 billion to new lines, Rs 45.34 billion to gauge conversion, Rs 300 billion to doubling works, Rs 171.5 billion to track renewals, and Rs 20.88 billion to bridges and tunnel works.
In addition, the budget has announced three programmes for energy, mineral and cement corridors, port connectivity corridors, and high-traffic-density corridors, under the PM Gati Shakti plan. This allocation will help Indian Railways (IR) push ahead with ambitious targets for de-clogging routes, renovating stations, inducting technology across all domains, expanding capacity, etc., all this while keeping sustainability in mind.
Work has progressed steadily. More than 500 stations are in the process of being modernised. The plan is to redevelop a total of 1,309 stations under the Amrit Bharat Station Scheme. The Gati Shakti Multimodal Cargo Terminal (GCT) policy and Mission Hungry for Cargo should give an impetus to achieving the target to increase IR’s share in freight movement from 27 per cent at present to 45 per cent by 2030. In 2023, about 51 GCTs were commissioned, and 80 more locations were identified.
The eastern DFC is fully operational and about 80 per cent of the western DFC has been commissioned. Once completely operational, the DFC will capture 150-200 million tonnes (mt) of additional traffic. Together, the DFCs will reduce emissions by about 457 mt of CO2 over a 30-year period. This is tied to the effort to go zero carbon by 2030.
In capacity building, a track length of 25,871 km was commissioned from 2014 to 2023. Construction activity speeded up with the deployment of new track construction machines. Another 50,000 km of tracks are to be added by 2028. About 95 per cent of the broad gauge network has been electrified and the remaining work is to be completed during calendar year 2024. This, again, will help reduce the sector’s carbon footprint.
Increased use of renewable energy is another focus area, as power consumption will rise 3x between FY 2021-22 and FY 2029-30 as diesel locos are replaced by electric. IR is also planning to run 35 hydrogen fuel cell trains.
There is, moreover, a plan to upgrade 40,000 bogles to Vande Bharat standards as semi-high-speed modern trains like Vande Bharat, Amrit Bharat Express and Tejas Express are being inducted.
On the safety side, the indigenous automatic train protection system – KAVACH – is being rolled out. Other advanced technologies such as building information modelling, drones and IoT-based monitoring are being deployed.
Asset management is being digitalised with online monitoring of rolling stock for early detection of defects and deficiencies. This will help optimise energy use and improve traffic management. A real-time train information system has been developed in collaboration with the Indian Space Research Organisation. This enables the exact location of a train to be obtained through GPS sensors. The system has already been installed on over 8,000 locos.
IR will need to invest Rs 1 trillion over 15 years to replace ageing rolling assets. It intends to decongest infrastructure by 51 per cent in 2024-25.
Apart from appropriate budget allocations, there are, however, some challenges that IR must overcome to achieve all these targets. These include issues in land acquisition, obtaining forest and other statutory clearances, and shifting of utilities. The lack of technical competence among contractors is another constraint. However, the consistent policy focus gives rise to hope that these challenges can be overcome.