Route wise development programme

An investment of Rs.75,000 crore will be made over the next seven years to augment line capacity on identified routes to create the required capacity for carrying an additional 310 million tonnes. This was announced by the Minister of Railways, Shri Lalu Prasad, while presenting the Railway Budget 2008-09 in the Lok Sabha today.

The Minister said that a blue print on the route-wise detailed study has been prepared and accordingly, route-wise works would be undertaken in a phased manner. This would include 124 works of doubling, third and fourth lines, bye-passes, flyovers, crossing stations, intermediate block stations, automatic signaling works and yard re-modelling.

Shri Lalu Prasad said that the above works include construction of the Eastern and Western Corridors and informed that 104 throughput enhancement works, already in progress, would be completed over the next two years. He said that the entire network would be provided with Intermediate Block Stations (IBS) by March next year.