Indian Railways issues draft National Rail Plan

Indian Railways issues draft National Rail Plan

Part of: GS Prelims and GS-III – Infrastructure

In news

• Recently, Indian Railways issued draft National Rail Plan. 

Key takeaways 

• The objective of the Plan is to create capacity ahead of demand by 2030, which in turn would cater to growth in demand right up to 2050 and also increase the modal share of Railways from 27% currently to 45% in freight by 2030.
• It aims to Reduce transit time of freight substantially by increasing average speed of freight trains from present 22Kmph to 50Kmph.
• Three Dedicated Freight Corridors, namely East Coast, East-West & North-South identified along with timelines. 
• Assess Locomotive requirement to meet twin objectives of 100% electrification (Green Energy) by December 2023 and also the increasing traffic right up to 2030 and beyond up to 2050.
• Several new High Speed Rail Corridors have also been identified. 
• Survey on Delhi-Varanasi High Speed Rail already under way.

Do you know? 

• As part of the National Rail Plan, Vision 2024 has been launched for accelerated implementation of certain critical projects by 2024 such as:
  • 100% electrification,
  • Upgradation of speed to 160 kmph on Delhi-Howrah and Delhi-Mumbai routes,
  • Upgradation of speed to 130kmph on all other Golden Quadrilateral-Golden Diagonal (GQ/GD) routes
  • Elimination of all Level Crossings on all GQ/GD route.