Indian Railways To Spend Over 35k Cr On Doubling in FY22-23 To Raise Capacity, Remove Bottlenecks

In an effort to remove bottlenecks plaguing freight and passenger traffic, Indian Railways will spend over 35,000 crores on quadrupling, Tripling and Doubling of lines, bypass and flyover projects in the financial year 2022-23.

Approximately 14,500 kilometres of Indian Railways’ route, where doubling, tripling or quadrupling of railway lines is underway, will benefit from the investment. Much of this investment will be to finance capacity enhancement projects on congested or freight-heavy routes.

Freight Heavy Zones Get High Allocations

Heavy allocations have been made for bottleneck removal and capacity enhancement work on ECoR, SCR, SER, CR and SECR. These zones carry a significant amount of coal and other mineral traffic in the country. They will receive more than 18,500 crores of the allocated funds under the Doubling head.

A significant portion of investment in these zones is to add a third or fourth line to further increase capacity for hauling mineral traffic.

In addition to increasing the number of lines, a number of bypasses and rail flyovers have also been allocated significant sums as a means of reducing bottlenecks.

Capacity Expansion on Passenger Routes

The government has ensured line doubling projects in the North East do not slow down. 1,570 crores have been allocated for key projects like New Bongaigaon- Agthori (Via Rangiya) and
New Bongaigaon-Goalpara – Guwahati doubling.

Doubling or tripling projects on several other routes with high traffic growth have received substantial funds for 2022-23. These include the Pune-Miraj-Londa doubling project, the Mathura-Jhansi 3rd Line,
Roza-Sitapur Cantt – Burhwal doubling, Mughalsarai-Allahabad 3rd Line, Rajpura – Bhatinda doubling, Barabanki – Akbarpur doubling, Jaunpur – Tanda doubling and Bina -Katni 3rd line works.

Highest Ever Investment

In the Union Budget for Financial Year 2022-23 released on 1st of February 2022, Indian Railways will receive 2.45 lakh crores for various infrastructure upgrade works. This includes investments in the Dedicated Freight Corridor, National High-Speed Rail Corporation and works being undertaken in collaboration with various state governments.

This figure includes Kolkata Metro but not investments in the National Capital Region Transport Corporation and various other metro systems coming up across the country through the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. The government will invest approximately 25,000 crores through the MoHUA run urban transportation projects.

List of Key Indian Railways Line Doubling, Tripling or Quadrupling Projects Receiving Substantial Funds for 2022-23

Correction: Two entries in the table for Thiruvananthapuram-Kanniyakumari and Chennai Beach to Chennai Egmore were inadvertently listed under SER instead of SR. The error is regretted.