Each railway project takes 12 years: Officials

Mumbai: Railway officials told Union railway minister Piyush Goyal that every project in the city takes 12 years. Replying to the minister’s questions on why major projects like the fifth and sixth line, new trains and upgrading infrastructure, including FOBs, had not been completed. The time between the presentation of the proposal and its completion takes an average of 12-years in the railways, thanks to delays caused by litigation; complications associated with land-acquisition and red-tapism, said railway officials.

A railway officer said, “For example, the 5th and the 6th line is now estimated to be over by 2019, while the first draft of it was prepared way back in 2007.”

Friday’s stampede at the Parel-Elphinstone Road FOB has led to the review of the time period taken to complete each city project. Officials also singled out red-tapism and extreme departmentalisation in the railways as one of the primary reasons behind these delays. Addressing the problem, the minister said that junior-level officials would now be able to talk directly to either of the general managers of all the 17 zonal railways in the country.

In fact, they will now be encouraged to directly present their ideas to Mr Goyal and the chairman of the railway board, Ashwini Lohani.

Another official said, “The minister has now asked for a list of incomplete projects that have been pending since a decade or more. “We have been asked to pull up the deadlines of all these projects and send a revised deadline list to the minister,” he said. Some of these delayed projects include the 223 FOBs at both Central and Western Railway.