OREANDA-NEWS. August 30, 2012.  As on April 1, 2012, there are 173 ongoing doubling projects in various stages of execution across the country. An expenditure of Rs. 10,426 crore has been incurred on these projects upto March 2012. Indian Railways have huge throwforward of projects and limited availability of resources. As a result, projects are progressing as per availability of resources. As on April 1, 2012, Railways require about Rs. 38,736 crore for completing ongoing doubling projects.

 Railways projects have a long gestation period. The targets for projects are generally fixed on yearly basis based on availability of resources, progress made, and consequently, projects get completed in phases. The projects which are in advance stage of completion are given priority for resource allocation to get maximum benefit of the investment.

 To augment resources other than Gross Budgetary Support, steps have been taken to generate extra budgetary resources through State participation and other beneficiaries, Public Private Partnership, defence funding, declaring some projects ad National Projects and implementation of bankable projects through Rail Vikas Nigam Limited.

 Zone-wise details of ongoing doubling projects as on April 1, 2012 are Central Railway (7 projects), East Coast Railway (14 projects), East Central Railway (3 projects), Eastern Railways (38 projects), Northern Railways (20 projects),North Central Railway (3 projects), North Eastern Railway (5 projects), Northeast Frontier (4 projects), North Western Railway (11 projects), Southern Railway (15 projects), South Central Railway (5 projects), South Eastern Railways (17 projects), South East Central Railway (7 projects), South Western Railway (9 projects), West Central (7 projects) and Western Railway (4 projects).

 This information was given by the Minister of State for Railways Shri K. H. Muniyappa in written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.