The Indian Railways is reportedly planning to spend INR 1000 crore a month for the next 6 months to replace old and out-of-date tracks with the new ones. This is to reduce the occurrences of several railway derailments lately.
Only 2% of Indian railway tracks, i.e., about 2,000 km were replaced every year till now. So, after a spate of fatal incidences, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal has ordered to renew 3,600 km of tracks which is an increase of 80% as compared to the existing number. He has also cleared the proposal for international bids for the supply of steel from next month.
Piyush Goyal has also instructed the Railway Board to meet on a weekly basis to review safety measures and parameters for all the rail zones.
A Railway Ministry official said, “We will be changing everything from track ballasts to the clips. The work is being done on a war footing. Tracks are already being routed to the desired locations. General managers of the zones have been instructed to award maintenance blocks wherever needed.”
A new timetable has also been decided to ensure that there is enough time available for maintaining the rail tracks and signaling as well. Also, the commuters can travel without any delays and that this work can be carried out simultaneously.
As there is a train every 10 minutes on highly dense routes, the engineers get very less time for maintenance. The new timetable, which is to be released on 1st November, 2017 will reduce the unnecessary delays on routes by up to 60 minutes.
