Spending on safety increased, says Goyal

Modern technologies that lower reliance on human element and improve efficiency of the system are being adopted by the Indian Railways, Minister Piyush Goyal said on 9 Feb 2018.

Self Propelled Ultrasonic Rail Testing (SPURTZ Car) is under procurement while Trail of Ultrasonic Broken Rail Detection System is underway.

TPWS (Train Protection and Warning System) and TCAS (Train Collision Avoidance System) as means of Automatic Train Protection to prevent accidents due to over speeding & passing signal at danger is being adopted, said Goyal, who is Railways Minister.

TPWS System is under implementation at 3,330-RKM section on Suburban/High-density Route. It is planned to install the same on Golden quadrilateral and diagonal route by 2023.

There is no shortage of fund for safety related works, stressed Goyal.

Expenditure on safety in 2014-15 was Rs.42,304 crore, in 2015-16 was Rs.45,516 crore, in 2016-17 Rs.55,918 crore and in 2017-18 estimated Rs.68,725 crore while for 2018-19 it is budgeted Rs.73,065 crore.

An additional allocation of 6.3% has been made in the Budget of 2018-19 as compared to 2017-18.

Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh (RRSK) has been created with a corpus of Rs.100,000 croore for making additional funds available for safety related works.

Various essential items like FoBs, Platforms, pathway, track fittings, running rooms, escalators, etc. have been reclassified as safety works and have been made available for funding under RRSK.

Unmanned Level Crossings (UMLCs) on A, B & C routes have been decided to be closed by MARCH, 2018.

Closure of the remaining UMLCs is top priority. In the Gate Mitras are being provided at vulnerable gates. As of November, 2017, all the 4236 numbers of UMLCs gate on Broad Gauge have been provided with Gate Mitra.

For the first time, a global tender for purchase of rails to alleviate shortage of rails for Total Rail Replacement (TRR) and new works is under process. fii-news.com