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Nitish plans broad safety measures
January 30, 2004 14:13 IST
Following the successful trial of the anti-collision device - 'Raksha Kavach' – the Railways Ministry has decided to provide the safety measure on all Broad Gauge sections of the Indian Railways progressively in the next five years.
Announcing this while presenting the Interim Rail Budget in the Lok Sabha, Railway Minister Nitish Kumar said surveys have been completed on 3,465 km on Northern, Northeast Frontier, Southern, South Central and South Western Railways. They were in progress on additional 10,000 km, he said.
Interim Railway Budget 2004-05
Kumar said provision of ACD was launched on January 20 this year on Northeast Frontier Railway, covering 1736 km of broad gauge network and is targeted for completion by December 2004.
Referring to the Special Railway Safety Fund, set up in October 2001, for execution of safety related works in a timeframe of six financial years, he said mid-period review showed "satisfactory progress".
While in 2001-02 works to the tune of Rs 1,434 crore (Rs 14.34 billion) were executed under this fund, in the next year works totalling Rs 2,486 crore (Rs 24.86 billion) have been carried out, he said.
In the current year, the total net allocation for SRSF was Rs 2,311 crore (Rs 23.11 billion) as per the budget estimates, which included Rs 1,600 crore (Rs 16 billion) as contribution from general exchequer and Rs 711 crore (Rs 7.11 billion) from the safety surcharge. This has been further increased by Rs 40 crore (Rs 400 million) in the revised estimates.