Eastern Rly to spend Rs 5,070-mn on infrastructure

Kolkata: Keeping in view the rising demand for passenger and freight services, Eastern Railway has planned a slew of projects which includes construction of new lines of about 550km, gauge conversion of 67km and electrification of 20.34km.

Apart from these projects, 14 surveys have been undertaken for construction of new lines of 575km, doubling of 16km track and gauge conversion of 74km.

The proposals were now before the Railway Board.

These projects would be executed subject to the Railway Board's sanction with the objective of connecting the growth centres planned in areas served by Eastern Railway and also new areas, N K Goel, general manager of Eastern Railway (ER), said at a session on ‘Eastern Railway- Vision 2020’, organised by the Merchants' Chamber of Commerce.

'Indian Railways are investing in a big way to strengthen infrastructure in the form of new lines, gauge conversion, doubling of tracks, traffic facilities, rolling stock and track renewal. ER will be spending about Rs 507 crore in the next few years on infrastructure', he added.

ER commissioned its Passenger Reservation System (PRS) at 100 locations and Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS) at 90 locations.

PRS would cover three more locations and UTS 300 more locations in 2008-09.

To increase throughput in suburban passenger services, ER was running 10 pairs of 12 coach EMU (Electric Multiple Units) trains on the Howrah-Sheoraphuli-Tarakeshwar section.

'The works for introduction of 12 coach EMU services in the Sealdah South section are nearing completion and will be introduced soon. In addition to this, running upto 24 coach long-distance trains are in vogue and are being introduced gradually. Works to accomodate 24 coach trains have been completed at 20 stations and four more stations are in progress', Goel said.

Goel hinted that ER would modernise Dum Dum railway station to facilitate mechanised loading and unloading of goods.

ER aimed to raise load capacity of wagons by using aluminium wagons, thereby reducing the weight of empty wagons.

It would take up modernisation and capacity enhancement plan of workshops at Liluah (Howrah) and Jamalpur (Bihar) at a cost of Rs 170 crore.

On the safety front, the total number of accidents in 2007-08 came down by more than 83 per cent in 2007-08 as compared to 2006-07 in the ER system.