RailEnquiry

The Indian Railways have made little progress in executing the 14 strategically important projects for laying rail lines in the border States, as proposed by the Defence Ministry, which is expected to entail close to Rs. 2 lakh crore in costs.These projects in the States of Arunachal Pradesh (two), Assam (one), Jammu & Kashmir (two), Punjab (one), Rajasthan (three), Uttarakhand (four) and one passing through Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir, require the construction of 2,590 km long rail tracks.Outlining the details in a written reply in the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Railways Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said the estimated cost of constructing nine of these projects was as high as Rs. 1.77 lakh crore.The cost of five projects was yet to be estimated but given the high cost of construction in the mountains, the requirement would touch close to Rs. 2 lakh crore, officials said.The average cost of construction is Rs. 70 crore per km of the rail track as per the projected estimation.The proposed 223 km Jammu-Akhmoor-Poonch New Line rail link in Jammu & Kashmir is expected to cost Rs. 1.36 lakh crore.The progress is rather slow — preliminary work has begun only with respect to one project in Uttarakhand, entailing a cost of Rs. 4295 crore, while with respect to a mega project in Assam the Defence Ministry has agreed to fund the entire cost of Rs. 11155.41 crore.The only other project on the verge of take-off is in Rajasthan where the Railways expect the State Government to share the cost of Rs. 429 crore.Of the rest, little progress has been made beyond completion of survey of six projects including one in Arunachal Pradesh which is expected to cost Rs. 19108 crore, while in the case of five others, survey is till under way.