Indian Railways plans to double originating train capacity in 48 major cities by 2030: Ministry

New Delhi, Dec 26 (PTI) The Railway Ministry on Friday said that to keep up with the rapid and sustained growth in travel, the capacity of major cities to originate new trains needs to be doubled in the next five years.

It added that the current infrastructure serving needs to be augmented so as to meet the requirements of the upcoming years.

Highlighting actions needed for doubling the originating capacity by the year 2030, it plans to augment the current terminals with additional platforms, identify and create new terminals in and around the urban area, construct maintenance facilities, including mega coaching complexes and increase the sectional capacity with traffic facility works, among others.

"While planning for increasing the capacity of terminals, stations around terminals will also be considered so that capacity is evenly balanced. For example, for Pune city, Hadapsar, Khadki, and Alandi have been considered for increasing capacity along with increasing platforms and stabling lines at Pune station," the Ministry said.

It added, "The above exercise will be done for both suburban as well as non-suburban traffic, keeping in view the distinct requirements of both segments." The Ministry will submit a comprehensive plan of stations in the 48 major cities to the Planning Directorate. Some of these cities are Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Patna, Pune, Mathura, Agra and Ludhiana, among others.

"The plan will include the works planned, proposed, or already sanctioned to achieve the goal of doubling the capacity of handling trains in a time-bound manner,' the Ministry said.

It added, "While the plan to double the capacity is by 2030, it is expected that capacity will be increased progressively in the next 5 years so that the benefits of capacity addition can be reaped immediately. This will help in meeting the traffic requirement progressively over the years. The plan will classify actions under three categories, i.e., immediate, short-term, and long-term." Officials said that the proposed plan should be specific with clear timelines and defined outcomes.

"While the exercise is for specific stations, however, each ZR should plan for increasing the capacity of trains running over their divisions so that not only terminal capacity is increased but also the sectional capacity and operational constraints at stations/yards are also addressed," the Ministry said. PTI JP JP HIG HIG