Manoj Sinha, union minister of state for railways, said that as soon as the NDA government came into power, the focus shifted to decongesting and expanding the railway network.  Speaking at the Railways Reform and Governance Conclave, organised by Governance Now in New Delhi on Friday, he said, “We have increased investment in this direction”.

Sinha highlighted ten key developments in the railways sector:

•    Railways sector has prepared an investment roadmap of Rs 8.8 lakh crore.
•    Budget allocation has increased to Rs 1.21 lakh crore this year from Rs 1 lakh crore allocated last year.
•    Presently, 7 kilometres of railway lines are laid per day. The target has been set to 13 kilometres per day.
•    Target of removing all unmanned railway crossing in next three-four years. 9,683 unmanned crossings already fixed.
•    Target of increasing the non-ticketing revenue from 4-5 percent to 10 percent. 
•    IRCTC has been asked to do a third-party audit of cleanliness at all railway stations. Awards to be given to top ten clean railway stations.
•    Railway week organised and officials working with utmost dedication and integrity to be awarded.
•    The ministry has submitted action taken report to the parliament on 139 announcements made in the last budget.
•    Work related to projects proposed for 2016-17 to be initiated within 6 months.
•    Target of zero accidents and better reservation system by year 2020.

Since the budget has been announced, the ministry has already started doing preliminary work for achieving the targets mentioned in the budget. “We have recently entered into an MoU with ISRO for using space technology in railways,” Sinha added.