Question : Ongoing Railway Projects in Bihar

(a) the present status of various ongoing/pending railway projects in Bihar;

(b) the steps taken by the Railways to complete the said projects in a time bound manner;

(c) whether the Government of Bihar has proposed to bear some cost of the said projects for their timely completion and if so, the details thereof and the reaction of the Railways thereto;

(d) the number of railway projects in Bihar for which survey has been conducted and approved but for which work is not underway as yet;

(e) if so, the details thereof; and

(f) the efforts made by Government to speed up the work of approved railway projects in Bihar?

MINISTER OF RAILWAYS AND COMMERCE & INDUSTRY

(SHRI PIYUSH GOYAL)

(a) to (f): A Statement is laid on the Table of the House.
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STATEMENT REFERRED TO IN REPLY TO PARTS (a) TO (f) OF UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 1789 BY SHRI CHANDESHWAR PRASAD, SHRI VIJAY KUMAR, AND SHRIMATI VEENA DEVI TO BE ANSWERED IN LOK SABHA ON 21.09.2020 REGARDING ONGOING RAILWAY PROJECTS IN BIHAR


(a), (d) and (e): Railway projects are sanctioned Zonal Railway wise and not State-wise as Indian Railways’ network straddles across various State boundaries. However, as on 01.04.2020, 57 projects (35 new lines, 05 gauge conversions and 17 doublings), costing ?74,880 crore, covering a length of 5267 Km, falling fully/partly in the State of Bihar are in different stages of planning/approval/execution, out of which 1306 Km length has been commissioned and an expenditure of ?22,123 crore has been incurred upto March, 2020.

Since 2014-15, 17 projects of 1180 Km length costing ?13,259 crore, falling fully/partly in Bihar, have been completed and commissioned and also, during this period 18 projects of 1,412 Km length costing ?16,833 crore, falling fully/partly in Bihar, have been included in Budget.

Project-wise detail including cost, expenditure incurred and outlay are made available in public domain on Indian Railways website i.e. www.indianrailways.gov.in > Ministry of Railways > Railway Board > About Indian Railways > Railway Board Directorates > Finance (Budget) > Pink Book (Year) > Railway-wise Works, Machinery & Rolling Stock Programme (RSP) .

Budget Allocation for Infrastructure projects and safety works falling fully/partly in Bihar:
Average annual Budget allocation for infrastructure and safety works, falling fully/ partly in State of Bihar during 2014-19, has increased to ?3,061 crore per year from ?1,132 crore per year (during 2009-14), which is 170% more than average annual budget outlay of 2009-14 and budget outlay of ?4,093 crore was provided for financial year 2019-20 which is 262% more than average annual budget outlay of 2009-14. For financial year 2020-21, budget outlay of ?4,489 crore has been provided for these works which is 297% more with respect to average budget outlay of 2009-14.

Commissioning of Infrastructure projects and safety works falling fully/partly in Bihar:

During 2014-19, 695 Km length of New Lines/Gauge Conversion/Doubling projects falling fully/partly in the State of Bihar has been commissioned which is 119% more than the commissioning during 2009-14 (318 Km). During 2019-20, 231 Km length of New Lines/Gauge Conversion/Doubling has been commissioned which is 261% more than average commissioning during 2009-14 (63.6 Km/year).

(b) and (f): Completion of a Railway project depends on various factors like quick land acquisition by State Government, forest clearance by officials of forest department, shifting of infringing utilities, statutory clearances from various authorities, geological and topographical conditions of area, law and order situation in the area of project site, number of working months in a year for particular project site, due to climatic conditions, etc. and all these factors differ from project to project and affect the completion time of the project.

To ensure that projects are completed in time without cost overrun, lot of monitoring is done in Railways at various levels (field level, Divisional level, Zonal level and Board level) and regular meetings are held with the officials of State Government and concerned authorities to resolve the pending issues obstructing the progress of projects.

Besides, to ensure that projects are completed even before time, Railway has adopted the concept of incentives to the contractor in the form of bonus clause in contracts, which will further enhance the pace of execution of projects.

Further, for capacity enhancement projects institutional financing has been arranged, which has increased Railways’ capacity for committed fund provision for capacity enhancement projects.

(c): So far, Government of Bihar has not proposed to bear cost of any railway project falling fully/partly in Bihar.

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