Express News Service
NEW DELHI: As the Economic Survey 2021-22 came out with details on Monday, the Indian Railway sector will emerge to get a very high level of capital expenditure for becoming the engine of national growth in the next 10 years.
With a good number of mega projects in the pipeline, the railways will have no other way but to see a very high level of capital expenditures to accelerate its capacity growth by 2030.
The capital expenditure (Capex) has increased from Rs 45,980 crore per annum in 2014 to Rs 2.15 lakh crore – around five times the Capex of 2014.
As the Economic Survey further puts it, “As more projects are taken on hand and several sources of capital finding are developed, the Capex will increase further in the coming years and the railway system will actually emerge as an engine of national growth.”
Touching upon the National Rail Plan, the Economic Survey has laid down the road map for capacity expansion of the railway networks also by 2030 to cater the growth up to 2050.
“It envisages the creation of a future-ready railway system that is able to not only meet the passengers’ demand but also increase the modal share of railways freight to 40-45 per cent from the present level of 26-27 per cent,” the survey pointed out.
As the survey has categorically stated the Indian Railway has identified 58 projects as Super Critical, targeted to be completed by December 2022 while 68 projects have been identified as Critical and have been targeted to be completed by March 2024. These projects are focused on increasing capacity on routes that serve major mineral, industrial hubs along with the ports and major consumption centres under the National Rail Plan, the survey said.
The survey also pointed out that the freight ecosystem under the National Rail Plan is expected to grow from the current level of 26.27 per cent to 8200MT by 2030. At present, the railway capacity is barely able to carry 1220MT which is around 26.27 per cent of the modal share.
