National Rail Plan: In an endeavour to address the inadequacies of capacity constraints and improve its modal share in total freight eco system of the country, Indian Railways has come up with a Draft National Rail Plan. A long term strategic plan called the National Rail Plan has been developed to plan infrastructural capacity enhancement along with strategies to increase modal share of the Railways. It will be a common platform for all future infrastructural, business and financial planning of the Railways. This plan is being circulated among various Ministries for their views now. Railways aims to finalise the final plan by January 2021.
Ministry of Railways in a statement said that to create capacity ahead of demand by 2030, which in turn would cater to growth in demand right up to 2050. It will also increase the modal share of Railways from 27 per cent currently to 45 per cent in freight by 2030 as part of a national commitment to reduce Carbon emission and to continue to sustain it and net Zero Carbon emission by 2030.
The Ministry said that as part of the National Rail Plan, Vision 2024 has been launched for accelerated implementation of certain critical projects by 2024 such as 100 per cent electrification, multitracking of congested routes and upgradation of speed to 160 kilometer per hour on Delhi-Howrah and Delhi-Mumbai routes.
