Ministry aims to commission 100 GCTs within next three financial years
Forty-one stations have been identified for major upgradation under a recently initiated scheme for major upgradation of railway station has been initiated, Minister of Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw said in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha on 6 April 2022.
The facilities envisaged in this scheme includes rebuilding, improvement, augmentation of building, congestion free non-conflicting entry and exit to the premises, segregation of arrival and departure of passengers, adequate concourse without overcrowding, integration of both sides of the city wherever feasible, user friendly signages, well illuminated circulating area and sufficient provision for drop off, pick up & parking among others as per requirement and feasibility.
Also, 40 stations have been identified for upgradation and modernization under the Adarsh Station Scheme based on identified need of providing better enhanced passenger amenities at stations. These are targeted for development in Financial Year 2022-23.
He said 1,213 stations have been completed out of the 1,253 listed under the Adarsh Station Scheme, which the Ministry has formulated as part of the various developmental schemes — Model and Modern in various small and big cities.
The Ministry has also sanctioned for the survey and preparation of Detailed Project Report for the Dedicated Freight Corridors — the 1,115-km East-Coast Corridor (Kharagpur to Vijayawada), East-West Corridor (2,163-km Palghar-Bhusawal-Nagpur- Kharagpur-Dankuni and 195-km Rajkharsawan-Kalipahari-Andal) and 975-km North-south Sub-corridor (Vijayawada-Nagpur-Itarsi).
Presently, the Ministry has completed 1,110 km out of 2,843 km of two Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFC) — the 1,337-km Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC) from Ludhiana to Sonnagar and the 1,506-km Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (WDFC) from Jawaharlal Nehru Port Terminal (JNPT) to Dadri (1506 km).
In order to boost investment from industry in development of additional terminals for handling rail cargo, a new ‘Gati Shakti Multi-Modal Cargo Terminal (GCT)’ policy, launched on 15 Dec 2021, aims to commission 100 Gati Shakti Cargo Terminals (GCTs) within the next three financial years — 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25, Vaishnaw said.
The Ministry has schemes to attract private investment in General Purpose Wagons, Special Purpose/High Capacity wagons and Automobile carrier wagons. During 2021-22, procurement of around 150 rakes has been approved under the General Purpose Wagon Investment Scheme, Liberalized Special Freight Train Operator Scheme and Automobile Freight Train Operator Scheme.
In order to improve the share of Railways in the freight market and to make it more attractive, a number of measures have been adopted such as increasing the axle load for carrying additional traffic per wagon, use of extensive computerization in freight operations, deployment of higher capacity locomotives and higher capacity wagons, improvement in maintenance practices of wagons and locomotives, improvement in track and signaling, training of staff and officers to adopt new technology and management practices.
Besides, Remote Diagnostic and Predictive Maintenance, based on artificial intelligence, is also being tried in Signaling, he added. fiinews.com
