Land acquisition delays and fund crunch due to cost sharing issues with government or perhaps the general economic slowdown have led to South Central Railway (SCR) slowing down the pace of construction and electrification works considerably in the last few months with targets set for this year appearing to be a mirage.
The zone has set itself a target of building 465 km track, including new lines and doubling or tripling of existing lines, but just 11.40 km was done till July this year. There are about 20 projects slated to be taken up in 2019-20 but progress has been tardy.
Fall in passenger count
Interestingly, there has been a fall in passenger count too with 128 million passengers carried till July, which is 2.91% short of the target. Even in the freight carried there has been a decline at 39 million tonnes or 4.41% less than the target for the first four months of the year, senior officials informed.
Passenger growth rate has also been pretty marginal at less than 1% in the last few years save 2016-17 when it carried 375 million people at a growth rate of 2.46%. There has been a slight improvement in punctuality of trains at 80%, up from 76% last year and most of the timings going awry was attributed to ongoing construction and engineering works at different locations.
Safety performance has, however, been excellent with just a couple of derailments reported in either passenger or freight trains in the last one-and-a-half year. Vacancies across different categories such as operations, engineering, mechanical, signal and electrical, are close to 18,000, they explained, wishing to remain unidentified.
Works identified to be completed this year include Secunderabad - Mahabubnagar, Jadcherla-Divitipalli-Mahabubnagar, Shadnagar-Balanagar, Gollapalli-Jedcherla, Manoharabad-Kothapalli, Manoharabad-Gajwel, Parbhani-Mudkhed, Vijayawada-Kondapalli, Nadikudi- Srikalahasti, Piduguralla - Rompicherla, Kazipet - Balharshah. Munirabad-Mahabubnagar, Gooty - Turkapalli, Krishna - Maganur, Bhadrachalam - Sattupalli, Kallur-Guntakal, Guntur-Guntakal, Gooty- Dharmavaram, Guntur-Guntakal, Kazipet-Vijayawada, Gooty-Dharmavaram, Vijayawada - Guidivada-Bhimavaram-Narasapur, Bhimavaram - Nidadavole, Gudivada - Machilipatnam, Akividu - Bhimavaram, Vijayawada - Gudur.
Seven other connections were lined up for electrification totalling 285.15 km but here too, the work has been lagging.
The zone had built about 213 km of new lines or doubled/tripled and electrified 432 km in 2018-19 and it would be challenge to even touch this figure, officials admitted.
