3rd-7th MARCH, 2025 | 10:00AM-7:00PM
Railways
The Indian railway system is regarded as the foundation and lifeblood of the economy. Indian railways span thousands of kilometres practically covering the entire nation, making it the fourth largest in the world after the US, China, and Russia. The Railways Board, which has a monopoly over the provision of rail services in India, oversees overseeing the whole infrastructure. Due to its low cost and effective operations, railways continue to be the most popular means of transportation for most Indians when travelling long distances.
India's railway network is recognised as one of the largest railway systems in the world under single management. The railway network is also ideal for long-distance travel and movement of bulk commodities, apart from being an energy-efficient and economic mode of conveyance and transport. Indian Railways is the preferred carrier of automobiles in the country.
The government of India has focused on investing in railway infrastructure by making investor-friendly policies. It has moved quickly to enable Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in railways to improve infrastructure for freight and high-speed trains. At present, several domestic and foreign companies are also looking to invest in Indian rail projects.
Vision 2024 has been envisaged to achieve targets of 2024 MT freight loading by 2024.
Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail project sanctioned at a total cost of $14.27 Bn.
As of Feb 2024, 61,813 km length of Broad-Gauge network has been electrified. With this, Indian Railways is rapidly progressing towards its target of 100% electrification and becoming the largest green railway network in the world. Indian Railways has commissioned Wi-Fi at 6,089 Railway stations across the country.
To achieve its green mission, Indian Railways has solarized more than 1000 stations.
400 new generation Vande Bharat Trains to be manufactured during the next three years.
100 PM Gati Shakti Cargo terminals for multimodal logistics to be developed during the next three years.
The railway sector in India aims to contribute about 1.5% to the country’s GDP by building infrastructure to support 45% of the modal freight share of the economy.
Two Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFC), one on the Western route (Jawaharlal Nehru Port to Dadri) and another on the Eastern route (Ludhiana to Dankuni), have been fast-tracked.
On cumulative basis from Apr-Jan 2024, Railways have earned INR 1,40,623.4 Cr against INR 1,35,388.1 Cr over the last year from Freight loading.
New Line/ Doubling/ Gauge Conversion: 5243 kms of conversion have been achieved during 2022-23 as against 2909 kms in 2021-22. The average daily track laying in FY23 comes out to be 14.4 km per day, which is also the highest ever commissioning.
785 electric locomotives produced in this FY 2022-23 up to 31st January 2023.
As on 31st January, 2024, 82 Vande Bharat train services are operating across the Indian Railways.
Currently, a total of 2359 trips of Kisan Rail trains have been operated on 167 routes, wherein nearly 7.9 lakh Tonnes of consignments have been transported.
6521 (98.8% of total stations) Stations have been equipped with Electrical/Electronic Signalling Interlocking System up to 31.12.2023.
During 2022-23, 30 Freight Terminals were created as compared to 21 Freight Terminals in 2021-22.
100% FDI allowed in railway infrastructure under the automatic route.