Southern Railway has been allocated ₹3,340 crore in the budget for the year 2020-2021. This is nearly 19 per cent lower than the ₹4,118.80 crore allotted in 2019-20.

The budgetary allocation for 2020-21 has a grant of ₹1,238 crore for doubling works; ₹175 crore towards gauge conversion; ₹37 crore for traffic facilities; and ₹198 crore for passenger amenities, says a press release from the Southern Railway.

A sum of ₹8,559 crore has been sanctioned for new projects.

This includes ₹4,131 crore for doubling of the Katpadi-Villupuram line; Salem-Karur-Dindigul line; Erode-Karur line; and the Chennai Beach-Chennai Egmore (4th line). The ₹280 crore sanctioned for the Chennai Beach-Chennai Egmore 4th line will help ease congestion in the section, says the press release.

With focus on safety, ₹880 crore have been sanctioned for new road-over-bridges and road-under-bridges, particularly on the Golden Quadrilateral/Diagonal routes (Chennai–Gudur/Chennai–Arakkonam–Renigunta). This has the potential to increase the speed of trains.

As much as ₹148 crore has been provided for centralised traffic control in connection with the modern train control system. This will help in enhancing the line capacity and safety. To harness the benefits of technology for safe train operations, an indigenous train collision avoidance system on low density railway network has been sanctioned at a cost of ₹468.9 crore, the release said.

An amount of ₹150 crore has been sanctioned towards minimum essential amenities and ₹75 crore towards soft upgrades at stations, the release said.

comment COMMENT NOW