Indian Railways’ Proposal To Raise Trains’ Speed To 160 Kmph On Delhi-Howrah, Delhi-Mumbai Routes Approved By Cabinet

The Union Cabinet led by Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi has approved the proposal from Indian Railways to increase the speed on the crucial Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah routes of the national rail network to facilitate the running of trains at 160 kmph, reports Indian Express.

According to the report, the approval for Railways’ proposal was given in the Cabinet meeting held on Monday (5 August).

While the cost of the project for the Delhi-Mumbai route will be Rs 6,806 crore, the cost for the Delhi-Howrah route will be Rs 6,685 crore.

Once the work on these two routes gets completed, the time taken to travel from Delhi to Mumbai will be reduced by 3.5 hours, while the time taken to travel from Delhi to Howrah will be slashed by around five hours.

As per the report, increasing the speed of the Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah sections to 160 kmph will ensure up to 60 per cent increase in average speed of passenger trains and doubling of average speed of freight traffic.

The move by the government is significant as the two routes together account for 29 per cent of all passenger traffic and 20 per cent of all freight traffic on the national rail network. The project is set to be completed by 2023-24.