After Gadkari, Suresh Prabhu Sets Himself A Daily Target: Nearly 10 Km Of New Tracks Every Day

The Indian Railways has been notorious for slow implementation of projects for some decades now. New track laying progammes take years to complete, bridge works remain incomplete for very long periods and infrastructure upgrades seem to have forever to happen. All this is set to change with a series of new measures being announced.

First, the railways is doing away with its current manual track laying methods which only achieve a miserly 100 metres of new tracks per day.

If things go per plan the railways will import new automatic track laying equipment that can do 1.5 km per day. Overall, the railways has been reported to have set itself a target of laying at least 9.5 km of new tracks every day.

The next thing on agenda seems to be prioritising long pending projects and ensuring full funding for them.

Over the years, successive railway ministers have announced and inaugurated a slew of projects without any guarantee of future funding. As a result of such reckless populism, the railways has on its hands more projects than it can implement and fund at any given time. Incumbent railways minister Suresh Prabhu began his tenure by consolidating such projects and avoiding new trains and projects for a sometime.

This year, the budgetary allocation for railways was set at a record Rs 1.31 lakh crore. Nearly 3,500 km of new tracks and track renewal works for 3,600 km have been planned. These projects have to come online soon in the view of declining market share of railways in both passenger and cargo segments. Suresh Prabhu definitely has his hands full and will be closely watched.