Indian Railways (IR) has decided to undertake electrification of Broad Gauge (BG) Railway lines in mission mode. Significant progress has already been made in this regard and IR is likely to electrify all BG rail lines by 2023-24.
- As on 01.04.2020, Total length of the entire Indian railways network (all Gauges) is 67,956 Route kilometres.
- As on 01.04.2021, 484 Railway projects of 51,165 km length, costing approx. Rs. 7.54 lakh crore are in different stages of planning/sanction/execution, out of which 10,638 km length has been commissioned and an expenditure of Rs. 2,13,815 crore has been incurred upto March, 2021. These include:-
- 187 New line projects of 21,037 km length, costing Rs. 4,04,986 crore, out of which commissioning of 2,621 km length has been achieved and expenditure of Rs. 1,05,591 crore has been incurred upto March, 2021.
- 46 Gauge Conversion projects of 6,213 km length, costing Rs. 53,171 crore, out of which commissioning of 3,587 km length has been achieved and expenditure of Rs. 22,184 crore has been incurred upto March, 2021.
- 251 Doubling projects of 23,915 km length, costing Rs. 2,96,186 crore, out of which commissioning of 4,430 km length has been achieved and expenditure of Rs. 86,041 crore has been incurred upto March, 2021.
- Completion of a Railway project(s) depends on various factors like expeditious land acquisition by State Government, forest clearance by officials of forest department, shifting of infringing utilities, statutory clearances from various authorities, geological and topographical conditions of area, law and order situation in the area of project site, number of working months in a year for particular project site due to climatic conditions etc. and all these factors affect the completion time.
- Zone-wise total BG Route kilometers (RKM), electrified BG RKM & balance BG RKM to be electrified as on 31.03.2021 is as under:-
| SN | Railway | Total Broad Gauge (BG) Route Km | Electrified BG Route Km | Balance BG Route Km to be electrified |
| 1 | Central | 3,853 | 3,336 | 517 |
| 2 | East Coast | 2,800 | 2,791 | 9 |
| 3 | East central | 4,008 | 3,540 | 468 |
| 4 | Eastern | 2,820 | 2,490 | 330 |
| 5 | North Central | 3,222 | 2,707 | 515 |
| 6 | North Eastern | 3,102 | 2,299 | 803 |
| 7 | Northeast Frontier | 4,152 | 652 | 3,500 |
| 8 | Northern | 7,062 | 5,512 | 1,550 |
| 9 | North Western | 5,248 | 2,186 | 3,062 |
| 10 | South Central | 6,206 | 4,145 | 2,061 |
| 11 | South East Central | 2,348 | 2,120 | 228 |
| 12 | South Eastern | 2,713 | 2,661 | 52 |
| 13 | Southern | 4,914 | 3,570 | 1,344 |
| 14 | South Western | 3,578 | 1,208 | 2,370 |
| 15 | West Central | 3,011 | 3,011 | 0 |
| 16 | Western | 4,885 | 3,183 | 1,702 |
| 17 | Kolkata Metro | 27 | 27 | 0 |
| 18 | Konkan | 740 | 443 | 297 |
| Total | 64,689 | 45,881 | 18,808 |
- About Rs. 21,000 crores are estimated to be incurred on electrification of balance Broad Gauge routes of Indian Railways.
- Indian Railways annual consumption of Electricity for traction purpose is about 18.41Billion Units during 2019-20 and 14.1 Billion Units during 2020-21.
- The estimated electricity consumption after complete electrification of Railway tracks shall be 30.13 Billion Units.
- This information was given by the Minister of Railways, Communications and Electronics & Information Technology, Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha on 23 July 2021.
Source: PIB-Press Release | Image Credit (representational): MoR
