The Hindu Business Line : Railway OFC project gains momentum

SETTING up of the high-speed railway control communication through optical fibre cable (OFC) system at Sealdah division (Sealdah North mainly) of Eastern Railway has gathered fresh momentum. Some 220 km of OFC have already been laid in Sealdah-Krishnanagar, Dumdum Jn-Dankuni and Dumdum-Jn-Bongaon lines of Sealdah division, covering North and the main suburban sections at a total cost of Rs 22 crore.

The Indian Railways has taken up a 10-year plan to bring some 3500-km route under OFC network.

Briefing newspersons here on the project details and other areas of the on-going OFC project, being executed by the one-year old RailTel Corporation, a member of Indian Railways, Mr S.C.Gupta, Member-Electrical, Railway Board, said the efficiency of the control circuit post-OFC was expected to improve to 99.84 per cent from the earlier 65 per cent. He said all railway telephone exchanges of the division such as Sealdah, Chitpur, Barrackpore, Naihati, Kanchrapara, Krishnanagar and Barasat have now been connected through OFC and provided with STD facility with under a uniform STD scheme. He said the railways would market any surplus capacity created.

Mr Gupta said the OFC has been planned as replacement of DOT cable in which large number of interruptions was occurring, affecting punctuality of suburban trains. The OFC system, according to him, has provided reliable and uninterrupted control communication, so essential for smooth train running in the busy Sealdah suburban sections. The PRS channels have already been shifted from DOT leased lines to railway-owned OFC network, resulting in annual savings of Rs 5.69 lakh (the rental which was being paid to VSNL). The V-SAT at Naihati Freight Operations System (FOIS) has been shifted to OFC network, resulting in annual savings of nearly Rs 4 lakh, according to ER officials.

Mr Gupta said the entire system of OFC network is being developed to prepare the Indian Railways for an unprecedented rise in passenger traffic. The plan was to cover all the high-density routes, and the initial investment earmarked is put at Rs 700 crore. The OFC has been laid on some 22,000 km of IR, and the objective was to cover the entire 62,000 km, he added.

Mr Gupta said among the facilities planned for the future are leasing out of spare bandwidth and provision of railway telephones at stations. A major benefit would be the availability of a centralised public address system at Sealdah for communicating special information to passengers at different wayside stations. It is learnt that RailTel has already earned some Rs 70 lakh by leasing out spare dark fibre.

Work on providing mobile train radio communication has been sanctioned in the Howrah-Pradhunkanta section of Eastern Railway at a cost of Rs 20.29 crore. According to senior ER officials, with the commissioning of this work, it will be possible to contact the running crew and maintenance crew by using railway's own mobile telephone sets. Detailed estimate for this project has been sanctioned and the concerned tender has been opened, it is learnt. Further tendering for this project is said to be on, and work is likely to be completed by end of next financial year.

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