Indian Railways issues draft National Rail Plan

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News: Indian Railways has issued a Draft National Rail Plan.The plan will be a common platform for all future infrastructural, business and financial planning of the Railways.

Facts:

Key objectives of the Plan:

• Create Demand: To create capacity ahead of demand by 2030, which in turn would cater to growth in demand right up to 2050 and also increase the modal share of Railways from 27% currently to 45% in freight by 2030 as part of a national commitment to reduce net zero carbon emission by 2030.
• 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 modal share of the Railways in freight to 45% by 2030.
• Reduce transit time of freight substantially by increasing average speed of freight trains from present 22 Kmph to 50 Kmph.
• 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.
• Identify infrastructural bottlenecks that would arise in future with growth in demand.Select projects along with appropriate technology in both track work, signalling and rolling stock to mitigate these bottlenecks well in advance.