New Delhi: Travelling on Rajdhanis and Shatabdis is set to get shorter by at least an hour-and-a-half. The railway ministry has set a 2022 deadline by which it plans to cut travel time by 90 minutes in all 64 Rajdhanis and Shatabdis running across India.
The ministry has also proposed to increase the average speed of all other passenger trains from 60 km/h to 80 km/h and the average freight train speed from 24 to 45 km/h. These are among the slew of rail reforms that the ministry wants to undertake in the second term of the Modi government.
The proposals were presented before the then cabinet secretary P.K. Sinha last month by a top panel of secretaries constituted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to thrash out the roadmap for the infrastructure sector in the next five years.
The initiatives come at a time when the Indian Railways is facing stiff competition from budget airlines and the improved network of highways. “A strict timeline has been set to implement the ambitious proposals to make railways the most preferred mode of transport,” said a railway ministry official who did not want to be named.
New tech to reduce travel time in Rajdhanis, Shatabdis
For reducing the travel time in all the 64 Rajdhanis and Shatabdis, the rail ministry has decided to introduce push-pull traction, which involves attaching one engine to the rear and another at the front to pull the coaches.
In addition to this, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs had in August approved the ministry’s high-speed train project on the Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah routes. The trains on these routes will now cruise at a maximum speed of 160 km/h, from the existing 110 km/h, reducing the average travel time by seven hours.
More passenger amenities, safety measures on the anvil
The ministry has proposed to get private passenger train operators to provide world-class services. It has also set a 30 September deadline for leasing out two trains to its subsidiary, the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), on a pilot basis.
Improving safety is also high on the ministry’s agenda. It has set a September 2023 deadline to eliminate all 2,568 manned level crossings on the Golden Quadrilateral routes (Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi-Howrah, Howrah-Chennai, Chennai-Mumbai, Delhi-Chennai and Howrah-Mumbai).
“The ministry will move the cabinet for approval by 30 September,” said a railway ministry official familiar with the development. The Railways has also set a September-end deadline for providing wi-fi at all its 6,845 stations. “So far wi-fi has been commissioned at 1,618 stations,” said a railway ministry official who did not want to be named.
Also read: In 100-day plan of railways — reducing Delhi-Howrah, Delhi-Mumbai travel time by 5 hours