Team Herald
PANJIM: Union Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu on Wednesday said his ministry has been focusing on reducing costs and looking at alternative sources of revenue.
“We have significantly planned cost saving by launching mission 41K to save Rs 41,000 crore in 10 years through energy efficiency and procurement optimisation,” Prabhu said while delivering a lecture on Indian Railways and its progress spearheads the growth of the country at International Centre Goa.
“This year we have done a commendable job, we have done record electrification, new line laying, doubling and fitting of bio toilets. Only 40 percent of the railway lines in the country are electrified and in the next five years this will be doubled. In the last two and half years, the government has sanctioned 12,500 kms of track doubling which will benefit in terms of fast services and adding of new trains to the route,” he added.
He further said that the railways is building safety related infrastructure at a fast pace eliminating unmanned level crossing.
have been and 1354 railway over bridges/under bridges have been constructed.
“We have leveraged the private sector to build infrastructure in which we have provided high speed WIFI at more than 130 stations and our target is to reach 400 by year end and this is the largest WIFI programme in the entire world,” he said.
The minister said that the railways approved two new locomotive factories in Bihar which is one of the largest FDI’s in India with combined order book of over Rs 40,000 crore. “The factories are under construction and the target to commission in next year,” he said
Meanwhile, railways have built a one of its kind complaint redressal mechanism in the world and plan to integrate all kinds of social media platforms.
