Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav plans to modernise Railways under Adarsh Station Scheme

On Friday, the Minister of Railways announced that as many as 1,253 railway stations were identified to be modernized under Adarsh Station Scheme. A written reply to the Rajya Sabha informed that these projects costing ₹ 2,800 crores would be taken up for the financial year 2021-22. Ashwini Vaishnav informed that Indian Railways have also been interested in a major electrification program to electrify its Broad Gauge network.

Adarsh Station Scheme

Vaishnav while iterating on the Adarsh Station Scheme revealed that the allocation of funds for the central railway was taken as ₹ 230.58 cr. He also said that the Eastern Railway had been allocated 178.71 for development. Vaishnav added, "1,253 stations have been identified for development under the scheme. Out of these 1,206 railway stations have been developed and the remaining stations are planned to be developed in the financial year 2021-22."

Broad Gauge Electrification Program

In a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha on Friday, Minister of Railways, Ashwini Vaishnav informed that Indian Railways have been interested in a major electrification program. This was to electrify its Broad gauge (BG) network. Vaishnav stated, "Indian Railways has a total BG network of 64,689 Route kilometres (RKM) including 740 RKM of Konkan Railway. Out of these 45,881 RKM, about 71% has already been electrified until March 31, 2021. Electrification work is in progress under different stages of planning/execution on balance BG routes of IR, which are being electrified expeditiously."

Minister Vaishnav informed that the budget allocation has been done project-wise. For the financial year 2020-2021, the total allocated budget is 6,141 crores. To complete the projects in time, various steps have been taken which include among others award of large size Engineering Procurement and Construction (EPC) contracts, better project monitoring mechanism, assured and committed funds through 'Extra Budgetary Resource' and decentralization of powers to field units, Minister further stated.

Image Credits - PTI