National Rail Plan

In News-Indian Railways has come up with a National Rail Plan to address the inadequacies of capacity constraints.

About the Plan

• To plan infrastructural capacity enhancement along with strategies to increase the modal share of the Railways.
• It will be a common platform for all future infrastructural, business and financial planning of the Railways.
•  For successful implementation of the National Rail Plan, the Railways will be looking to engage with Private Sector, PSUs, State Governments and Original Equipment Manufacturers(OEM)/Industries.
•  The NRP is meant to increase the share of railways in freight.

Objectives and Significance

• Forecast growth of traffic in both freight and passenger year on year up to 2030 and on a decadal basis up to 2050.
• Formulate strategies based on both operational capacities and commercial policy initiatives to increase the modal share of the Railways in freight to 45% by 2030 as a part of a national commitment to reduce carbon emission .
  • Net Zero Carbon emission by 2030.
• Reduce transit time of freight substantially by increasing average speed of freight trains from present 22Kmph to 50Kmph.
• Reduce overall cost of Rail transportation by nearly 30% and pass on the benefits to the customers.
• Map the growth in demand on the Indian Railway route map and simulate the capacity behaviour of the network in future.
  • Three Dedicated Freight Corridors, namely East Coast, East-West & North-South identified along with timelines. PETS survey already underway.
  •  Several new High Speed Rail Corridors have also been identified. Survey on Delhi-Varanasi High Speed Rail already under way.
•  Assess Locomotive requirement to meet twin objectives of 100% electrification (Green Energy) by December 2023 and also the increasing traffic right up to 2030 and beyond up to 2050.

Significance :

• It will create a future-ready railways system and bring down the logistic cost for industry to enable Make in India.