Railways will present the modern website of railway reservation on new year

The biggest achievement of the Indian Railways in the year 2020 was to maintain the supply of essential commodities in the country during the lockdown in the period of Covid-19 epidemic and to transport more than 63 lakh laborers to their homeland. The year 2021 will begin with the new and modern website of IRCTC. The speed of trains will increase and timeliness will also improve.

Railway Board Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Vinod Kumar Yadav said in a virtual press conference here that the biggest achievement of the Railways in the year 2020 was to ensure uninterrupted supply of essential commodities during Covid period. Due to the dedication and service of the dedicated staff and officers of the railway, the supply of food grains, medical equipment and medicines, coal, fertilizer etc. in the thermal power plants continued smoothly. Railways operated parcel trains. Due to no pressure of passenger trains, the average speed of goods trains almost doubled.

Mr. Yadav said that the second important task was to reach about 63 lakh ten thousand laborers from all over the country through 4621 laborers special trains with the cooperation of various state governments. He said that the Railways converted all the pending works of safety during this period into an opportunity and completed 350 essential works of structural development at an accelerated pace and 1367 bridges were repaired which improved safety and speed. Pending deficiencies related to track maintenance, signaling and telecommunications, overhead electric wires, coaches, locomotives etc. were rectified. All tasks where blocks were needed to be completed were completed.

He said that during the Covid period, the railways converted 5601 coaches into Covid care centers and were stationed at various stations which helped in the treatment of thousands of Covid patients. The railways operated 1100 special trains, 618 festival trains, 3936 suburban trains in Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, 264 metro trains and 138 passenger trains in Kolkata to facilitate movement of people following all protocols of Covid.

Referring to the economic impact on the railways during the Covid period, he said that due to the measures taken in the railways sector, the railway has come down to more than 97.5 percent as compared to last year and it is clear from the indications that at the end of the financial year Will come in a state of profit. He will suffer a loss in passenger revenue. But due to non-running of passenger trains and other measures, the expenditure has also been cut by more than Rs 12 thousand crore. Thus, the railways will perform well in terms of operational outlay.

In response to a question about the Mumbai Ahmedabad Highspeed Rail Project, Mr. Yadav said that 90 percent of the land has been acquired in Gujarat and about 15 percent in Maharashtra for this project. The Government of Maharashtra has assured the Railways that over 80 percent of the land will be acquired in the next four months. He said that the Railways wants the entire project to be built in one go and opened simultaneously, but if the problem of land acquisition in Maharashtra is not solved, then it will be opened between Vapi to Sabarmati in Gujarat in the first phase and later the rest. Will be completed

When asked about the New Year's priorities, the Chairman of the Railway Board said that in order to make ticket booking easy and convenient for the railway passengers, the website of Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has been modernized and redesigned, which in the new year rail Minister Piyush Goyal will release. He said that the railways have improved the average speed of trains in 2020. The speed is being cut to 160 kilometers per hour by removing speed barriers on the Golden Card (GC) and Golden Quartinal (GQ) lines connecting major cities. Work has begun to increase the sectional speed of 160 kmph in Delhi Mumbai and Delhi Howrah lines. The speed of 130 km per hour on other GC and GQ routes will be completed in July 2021. Whereas by 2025-26 they will be converted into semi-speed railways.

Mr. Yadav said that in the new year, the journey period will be reduced by increasing the speed of trains in zero base time table. The improvement in the average speed of the trains will be maintained. A dedicated freight corridor (DFC) is being opened in 351 km section from Kanpur to Khurja in Uttar Pradesh and 306 km from Rewari to Madar in Haryana-Rajasthan. By March, three sections of Khurja to Dadri (46 km), Madar to Palanpur (335 km) and Sonnagar to Deendayal Upadhyay Junction (137 km) will be opened. Thus 40 percent of the DFC will be opened for traffic.