Massive increase in Rail Capital Budget in India for 2018-19

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jis

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Meanwhile in India the proposed budget for 2018-2019 fiscal for Railway Capital Expenditure is triple that of last year.

http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/policy/single-view/view/indian-budget-trebles-railway-investment.html

Among the big goals are significant double, triple and quadruple tracking. Completion of the dedicated freight corridor connecting Mumbai and Kolkata to Delhi and the North. And most surprisingly complete electrification of the system in five years. One thing that is clear is they do not think small and they don;t do silly gimmicks when they think infrastructure investment in that part of the world.

Do note that this does not included the Defense Ministry investment in construction of strategic rail links in the border areas, which includes projects like the spectacular Kashmir Rail Link. It also does not include foreign relations related rail projects like new and restored cross border links with Bangladesh, including the proposed trans-Bangladesh service between Kolkata and Agartala that is in the works, which includes India contributing to dual gauging the Dhaka to Akahura link that is currently Meter Gauge. All those come from a different part of the budget.

This is also not to say that either the Road or Aviation budgets are being short changed.
 
Thanks for the interestong info jis!

If someone was to point out this to the current group of Clowns in charge of the Government, they'd call it "Fake News" or a graft plan by "foriegners" no doubt!

Make America Great Again indeed!
 
Interestingly, while here we talk about dedicated passenger corridors, in India what they are building are dedicated freight corridors to offload freight traffic from the main trunk routes.

At the widest segments this is causing what used to be four and five track segments to go up to six and seven track segments.

For example, on the trunk route between Delhi and Kolkata, between Saktigarh and Sitarampur in the state of West Bengal, the 75-80 mile segment is going from four tracks to six tracks, and Dadri (near Delhi) to Sitarampur, over 700 miles is going from three to five tracks. And of course all this is fully electrified.

There is similar capacity enhancements in various segments between Delhi and Mumbai, and Delhi and Ludhiana in the north.
 
For the first time electrification will reach right upto the Pakistan border in Punjab

http://www.kgw.com/article/travel/watch-delta-air-lines-employee-curses-at-customer-at-pdx/283-518335264

Dera baba Nanak, Khem Karan and Hussainiwala are all right on the border.

Oddly enough Amritsar to Atari is not on the list. That is the only route that is open for cross border travel in Punjab.

Khem Karan was the site of a famous tank battle in the 1965 India - Pakistan war.

Previously, work was in progress at Hindumalkote en route to Sri Ganganagar in the adjacent Rajasthan State.

In the East, there are already a couple of routes that electrified right upto the Bangladesh border post, including the Kolkata - Gede route that is used by the international Maitryee Express to Dhaka. Several more are being added as branches to the Bangladesh border are on the list of line to be electrified..
 
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