Railway to lay 2,000 km Broad Gauge Railway line in 2007-08

New Delhi, Feb 26 (UNI) The Indian Railways has drawn up plans for laying 2,000 km of new Broad Gauge Railway line during 2007-08, Railway Board Chairman J P Batra said here today.

Addressing the conventional post-budget press conference, Mr Batra said the ministry is confident that this would be increased to 3,000 km of additional new lines in the year 2008-09.

He said in the proposed budget 2,600 new coaches would be added while some 400 old coaches would be replaced in the process, net 2,200 new coaches would be added in the Railways.

The Railways are also setting up a call centre from where one can get information about all trains, from anywhere in the country.

The number for the said call centre will be 139 and it would cost the customers in terms of local call charges.

Responding to a question, Mr Batra said the ministry is going to float tender for this and all efforts would be to provide value added service at zero load factor.

Commenting on the security of passengers, Mr Batra said currently 41 Railway stations were covered by Closed Circuit Televisions (CCTV), which would be raised to 150 stations.

He said some of the innovative steps are planned to be introduced in the forthcoming financial year, which includes increasing the number of seats in all classes and in all trains.

These steps would reduce the operating cost of the Railways and the ministry will pass on benefit out of this to the passengers by way of reducing the cost of the tickets, he added.

Mr Batra made it clear that the basic services in Railways will not be privatised. The Railways would, however, invite the private investments in the areas of infrastructure development like the budget hotels, parcel services production units.

These would be carried out in the form of joint ventures, he added.

On developing the tourist circuits in the country, Mr Batra said the ministry would now be writing letters to all state Governments asking their suggestions for the development of tourists circuits within their respective states.

Under the proposed schemes the state Governments who would be ready to share the cost of such project would be taken up on priority basis, he added.

UNI