Indian Railways to electrify Broad Gauge lines in mission mode by 2023-24

Significant progress has already been made in this regard and IR is likely to electrify all BG rail lines by 2023-24.


Devdiscourse News Desk | New Delhi | Updated: 23-07-2021 17:25 IST | Created: 23-07-2021 17:25 IST
Indian Railways to electrify Broad Gauge lines in mission mode by 2023-24
Indian Railways annual consumption of Electricity for traction purposes is about 18.41Billion Units during 2019-20 and 14.1 Billion Units during 2020-21. Image Credit: ANI
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Indian Railways (IR) has decided to undertake electrification of Broad Gauge (BG) Railway lines in mission mode. Significant progress has already been made in this regard and IR is likely to electrify all BG rail lines by 2023-24.

As of 01.04.2020, the total length of the entire Indian railways' network (all Gauges) is 67,956 Route kilometres.

As of 01.04.2021, 484 Railway projects of 51,165 km length, costing approx. Rs. 7.54 lakh crore is in different stages of planning/sanction/execution, out of which 10,638 km length has been commissioned and an expenditure of Rs. 2,13,815 crore has been incurred upto March 2021. These include:-

187 New line projects of 21,037 km length, costing Rs. 4,04,986 crore, out of which commissioning of 2,621 km length has been achieved and expenditure of Rs. 1,05,591 crore has been incurred upto March 2021. 

46 Gauge Conversion projects of 6,213 km length, costing Rs. 53,171 crore, out of which commissioning of 3,587 km length has been achieved and expenditure of Rs. 22,184 crore has been incurred upto March 2021. 

251 Doubling projects of 23,915 km length, costing Rs. 2,96,186 crore, out of which commissioning of 4,430 km length has been achieved and expenditure of Rs. 86,041 crore has been incurred upto March 2021. 

Completion of a Railway project(s) depends on various factors like an expeditious land acquisition by State Government, forest clearance by officials of the forest department, shifting of infringing utilities, statutory clearances from various authorities, geological and topographical conditions of the area, law and order situation in the area of the project site, number of working months in a year for particular project site due to climatic conditions etc. and all these factors affect the completion time.

About Rs 21,000 crores are estimated to be incurred on electrification of balance Broad Gauge routes of Indian Railways.

Indian Railways annual consumption of Electricity for traction purposes is about 18.41Billion Units during 2019-20 and 14.1 Billion Units during 2020-21. The estimated electricity consumption after complete electrification of Railway tracks shall be 30.13 Billion Units.

This information was given by the Minister of Railways, Communications and Electronics & Information Technology, Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today.

(With Inputs from PIB)

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