(a) the current status of construction of the Railway Bridges as announced in the Rail Budgets during the last three years; and
(b) the measures taken by the Railways for expediting the work in this regard?
(a) the current status of construction of the Railway Bridges as announced in the Rail Budgets during the last three years; and
(b) the measures taken by the Railways for expediting the work in this regard?
MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF RAILWAYS (SHRI MANOJ SINHA)
(a) & (b): A Statement is laid on the Table of the House.
STATEMENT REFERRED TO IN REPLY TO PARTS (a) & (b) OF UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 5496 BY DR. A. SAMPATH, SHRI P. K. BIJU AND SHRI INNOCENT TO BE ANSWERED IN LOK SABHA ON 27.04.2015 REGARDING CONSTRUCTION OF RAILWAY OVERBRIDGES
(a) & (b): 650 Road Over Bridges (ROBs) and 4,466 Road Under Bridges (RUBs) have been sanctioned in last three years (2012-15). Out of these works, 07 ROBs and 676 RUBs have been completed.
At present, Ministry of Railways has sanctioned works of 1,399 ROBs and 5,554 RUBs, having throwforward of ? 30,500 crores. Funding for these works comes from the Central Road Fund (CRF) as a percentage of the cess collected on petrol and diesel. The average annual allocation to Railways has been ? 1,100- 1,300 crore only, which is very meager.
In general, Railway undertakes construction of ROB in Railway portion whereas State Government constructs the approaches which quite often involve land acquisition. Hence, progress of ROBs depends on the progress of approaches.
In order to expedite the construction of ROBs/RUBs, Ministry of Railways has taken following measures:
# approached Ministry of Finance in February 2013 and recently in February 2015 for enhanced allotment of funds by suitably amending the Central Road Fund Act.
# directed zonal railways to hold bimonthly meeting with State Governments and other stakeholders to resolve the interface issues.