Budget allocation for Northeast Frontier Railway rose Rs 1,511 cr this year

Guwahati: Stressing on the important pillars of the Union Budget 2021 for making Indian Railways “Future ready”, Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) General Manager Anshul Gupta held a press conference in Guwahati on Saturday.

Gupta informed that Indian Railways has got the highest-ever total Plan Capex of Rs 2,15,058 crore, which is much higher than the last year’s figure of Rs 1, 61,042 crore. Out of this, the gross budget allocation for NFR for 2021-22 is Rs 8,060 crore, much higher than last year’s figure of Rs 6,549 crore, highlighted the GM.

Gross Budgetary Allocation in 2021-22 is 238% more than the average of 2009-14, which was Rs 3,383 Crore per year.

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The GM informed, “Adequate fund has been allotted for capital connectivity to North Eastern states by March, 2023, faster connectivity on NE Region by doubling of High Density Network (HDN) sections along with Electrification of entire network for seamless connectivity. GPS based Train Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) in High Density Networks (HDN) and Highly Utilized Networks (HUN) routes of NFR for ensuring safety of train movement was sanctioned in Budget 2020-21 and it has been sanctioned for remaining sections in this year’s Budget. With the introduction of this system, speed of the trains is monitored by the system and Automatic Braking applied if Loco Pilot crosses the speed limits or passes a signal at danger. Automatic Block Signaling (ABS) and Centralized Traffic Control (CTC) for HDN routes of NFR are also sanctioned in the Budget.”

Also, aesthetically designed Vista Dome LHB coach on tourist routes will be introduced to give a better travel experience to tourists willing to travel in NE region in consultation with the respective state government.

As per policy of the Indian Railways work for 100% electrification of NFR routes are also going on. He informed that work for Electrification is already complete in 451 RKM in NFR and work for electrification is going on in 770 RKM section in NFR which is likely to be completed by August 2021. Work in remaining 2962 RKM is planned to be completed by March, 2024.