“Indian Railway has become the unwanted child of the Government”

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Indian Railway’s Vision-2020 said speed will be raised to 200kmph but, 160kmph has not been achieved on a single route so far..

Budget-2020 shows that Indian Railway has become the unwanted child of the Government. While billions and billions are being spent on new highways and airports there is no concrete plan for rasing speed on Indian Railways, said Alok Kumar Verma, a retired chief engineer.

He says, Instead Indian Railways is burdened with unviable Bullet Train and DFC projects, and the infeasible mega Kashmir Rail-Link and similar projects in North-East in Himalayas.

Privatization of trains will not bring faster trains unless speed is raised on the trunk routes or new 200-250 kmph lines are built.

200 kmph became the standard in Europe in 1960’s, raised to 250 in 1990s with tilting trains.

China upgraded to 200-250 kmph in 1997-2007.

Indian Railway’s Vision-2020 said speed will be raised to 200 kmph. But, 160 kmph has not been achieved on a single route so far.

As someone who has studied for 25 years how the world railways have successfully competed against road and air transport. Alok Kumar Verma, a retired chief engineer from Northern Railway, unhesitatingly said that the decision of Railway Board that has decisively contributed to the decline of railways in India is the decision in 1996 to put on the back-burner the plan to raise speed to 200 kmph on the main trunk routes of Indian Railway.

He say, Indian Railway’s Vision-2020 which was released in 2009 said speed will be raised to 200 kmph by 2020. But, 160 kmph has not been achieved on even one route so far.

“By spending just about INR 5 lakh crore (equal to the cost of building a Bullet Train line from Delhi to Chennai) in the next 10 to 15 years it shall be possible to build 10,000 km of new lines and 5,000 km of upgraded lines to cover the Quadrilateral and all important connecting lines”, Shri Verma said.

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