The Railway Ministry has got a sanction of Rs 13,000 crore budget for its plan to rid the busiest routes of freight train traffic so that it can ply more passenger trains, Railway Board cHAIRMAN Rajiv Kumar Yadav said on Tuesday.
"The existing network of Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah will be free of freight to the maximum extent so that we will have enough capacity to run passenger trains. Our vision is to ply trains that can match the demand on that route. We have got a sanction of Rs 13,000 crore budget. We will upgrade the infrastructure simultaneously," he told reporters here.
According to Yadav, this move will remove the hassle of passengers waiting to get their rail tickets confirmed as it will free the busiest routes in the country along the aforementioned route.
"We will upgrade it in four years so that passenger trains could run at a speed of 160 km per hour. We should be able to run as many trains as the demand requires, " Yadav added.
Apart from this, the ministry is working to complete three dedicated freight corridors with a combined length of approximately 6,000 kilometers in the next five years.
These are the Delhi-Chennai route known as the North-South corridor, Mumbai to Howrah which is called the East-West corridor and Kharagpur to Vijaywada or the East Coast corridor.
Officials in the ministry said that a preliminary survey report of these corridors has been submitted and detailed survey will be completed soon, he also added that the existing networks will also be upgraded.
"Dedicated freight corridor between Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah is 3000 kilometres, which is our busiest route even among the golden quadrilateral and golden diagonal. We will complete upgradation of these routes by 2021," Yadav said.
( With inputs from ANI )