Railways need Rs 15,460 cr to complete 918 projects

The Indian Railways need a whopping Rs 15,460 crore (Rs 154.6 billion) for completion of 918 projects it has in hand, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Friday.

Minister of State for Railways Bharatsinh Solanki said during Question Hour that against the demand of about Rs 47,000 crore (Rs 470 billion), the gross budgetary support for 2012-13 is only Rs 24,000 crore (Rs 240 billion).

"The progress of the works (on these projects) is slow because of less allocation of gross budgetary support," he said.

. . .

Solanki said a suggestion has been made to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for constituting Prime Minister Rail Yojana so that the projects are completed.

"In fact, considering the large number of sanctioned projects, there is a huge requirement of funds.

"The major projects for expansion of rail network and capacity augmentation are of new lines, gauge conversion, doubling, workshops, metropolitan transport projects and electrification," he said.

. . .

He said there was no decision to set up a new corporation to speed up execution of various projects.

"However, Special Purpose Vehicles like Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd and Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation are already functioning for faster execution of projects entrusted to them," he said.

Railways have also proposed to set up a Rail Road Grade Separation Corporation for fast completion of road over/under bridges, he said.

. . .

Giving a break-up of the projects in progress, he said Rs 72,151 crore (Rs 721.51 billion) is needed for 129 new lines and another Rs 32,878 crore (Rs 328.78 billion) for doubling of 166 lines.

Forty-five gauge conversion projects need Rs 19,200 crore (Rs 192 billion), 53 electrification projects another Rs 3,211 crore (Rs 32.11 billion) and construction of 504 workshops, including production units require Rs 17,535 crore (Rs 175.35 billion).

Besides, Rs 8,485 crore (Rs 84.85 billion) was needed for 21 metropolitan transport projects, he added.