Railways claim significant progress in safety-related works

New Delhi, Aug 3 (UNI) The Railways today claimed that most of its safety-related works, including renewal of tracks and rehabilitation of bridges, had been progressing as per schedule and exuded confidence that the targets for the current fiscal would be met.

A ministry official said safety works worth Rs 14,912 crore had already been completed till March this year and another Rs 1882 crore was the targeted to be utilised in the fiscal 2007-08.

In physical terms, almost 90 per cent to 100 per cent progress has been achieved against most of the critical items.

The entire 16,538 km of track targeted for renewal has been renewed up to March. Similarly, rehabilitation of almost all of the 2370 identified bridges is targeted for completion by the end of next financial year.

In addition, the renewal of signaling gears at 1359 places and complete station track circuiting works at 5397 locations would be completed by the end of 2007-08 where as renewal of 7698 wagons, 186 coaches and 93 locomotives would be completed by August next year.

Pointing out that safety is the prime concern of Railways, the official said considerable progress had been made in the execution of works sanctioned under the Special Railway Safety Fund (SRSF).

A non-lapsable SRSF of Rs. 17000 crore is operational since October 2001.

The Corporate Safety Plan for the period 2003-2013 lays down the objectives, targets and strategies which Indian Railways would be pursuing as financial schemes, involving huge investment of Rs.

31,835 crore, including SRSF.

The action plan indicates broad timeframes for safety-related works, rehabilitation and modernisation of assets, induction of appropriate technologies to bring qualitative changes and reduced human dependence to prevent accidents.

UNI