Several sanctioned railway projects will be delayed due to lack of funds, Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi said today, projecting an investment requirement of Rs 14 lakh crore by 2020 for modernisation and expansion.

Trivedi said this in Lok Sabha today as he sought and got approval for a meagre amount of Rs one lakh in the Supplementary Demands for Grants for 2011-12 after a debate spread over several hours on Tuesday.

"We have come to Parliament with Supplementary Demands for Grants of Rs one lakh. This is only a technical demand as mainly some new safety related projects have to be taken up and parliamentary approval is required," he said in a speech which was laid in the House due to uproar created by the Opposition on various issues.

The grants and the Appropriation (Railways) Bill were passed in the din by voice vote.

Trivedi said the railways would need "a huge investment" of around Rs 14 lakh crore by 2020 for new projects, besides the requirement of modernisation, infrastructure expansion and passenger amenities.

The Railways "faces huge financial constraints. There is a limitation of the rail system to generate ample resources for expansion and upgradation", he said.

Noting that the backlog in completion of sanctioned projects and new lines alone would require over Rs one lakh crore, Trivedi said, "For want of adequate gross budgetary support, these projects are suffering and completion will get unduly delayed.

"The situation has been compounded by the reduction in the internal resource generation capacity of the Railways due to implementation of the 6th Pay Commission".

Trivedi said the total impact on the railways on account of the pay hike for its employees, including pension, was in the range of Rs 73,000 crore for the years 2008-09 to 2011-12 and the recurring annual impact was over Rs 20,000 crore.

Touching on the safety aspect, he said though statistics "indicate improvement in safety in railway operations, I will not rest till we eliminate human errors which cause accidents and achieve Vision 2020 goal of zero accidents".

The Minister said the railways was "a soft target" of frequent agitations which "may not even be remotely connected to railway's working".

He elaborated on several measures for strengthening safety including pilot projects for train protection warning system, interlocking of level crossing gates, vigilance control devices on locomotives and automatic fire alarm in long distance trains.

Besides training of staff and setting up of new training centres, a drive was being undertaken to man unmanned level crossings.

He said the Railway Protection Force was also being strengthened and the process of bringing a comprehensive legislation to empower it had been initiated.