Railways executes 200 maintenance projects during COVID-19 lockdown period

Taking advantage of the opportunity provided by the suspension of passenger services due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Indian Railways has executed more than 200 long-pending maintenance works including yard remodeling, repair and re-girdering of old bridges, doubling and electrification of rail lines and renewal of scissor crossovers. Pending for several years, these unfinished projects often confronted Railways as bottlenecks.

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‘Once in a lifetime opportunity’

Passenger train services were suspended in late March as India entered into a stringent and total lockdown to arrest the spread of the deadly Coronavirus. During this three-month-long period, the Railways said it focused on several long-pending overdue maintenance works which required traffic block of long durations. They were planned during the lockdown period considering it ‘Once in a lifetime opportunity’ to wipe out these maintenance arrears and take up the execution of work without affecting the train service.

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In a statement, the Railways said these works were taken up for the removal of bottlenecks and enhance safety include 82 rebuilding/rehabilitation of the bridge, 48 limited height subway/road under bridge in lieu of level crossing gate, 16 construction/strengthening of foot over bridge, 14 dismantling of old foot over bridge, 7 launchings of road over bridge, 5 yard remodelling, 1 commissioning of doubling and electrification and 26 other projects.

(Photo: PIB handout)

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