Turning the nationwide lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic into an opportunity is the factor that can be learned by the Indian Railways which cleared the backlog of 200 projects of critical importance in key sections of various parts of India.
India railways suspended passenger train services on March 25 and that allowed it to achieve pending maintenance works, which includes yard remodeling, repair and re-girdering of old bridges, doubling and electrification of rails, and renewal of scissor crossovers of various parts of Nation.
A report from Railway Ministry states that these projects were pending for numerous years and were often presented as bottlenecks.
These maintenance works also required a long stoppage of traffic. “Such projects were take up during the lockdown, considering it once in a lifetime opportunity to execute them without affecting the train service,” the Railway officials said.
Work Done by Railway
The work which was done by Indian Railways during this Lockdown included the rebuilding of 82 bridges, building 48 limited height roads under the bridge to replace level crossing gates, construction or strengthening of 16-foot overbridges, dismantling of 14 old foot overbridges (FOBs), launching of 7 road overbridges, five-yard remodeling, commissioning of doubling of one project and 26 other projects.
The railways said it completed yard modification work in Jolarpetti in the Chennai Division on May 21, which helped ease out curve, enhance the speed up to 60 km/h, and facilitated simultaneous reception and dispatch. It also dismantled old unsafe FOB at Ludhiana on May 5.
“Dismantling of this 135-meter abandoned FOB over 19 tracks and seven-passenger platforms was due since 2014,” the Ministry said.
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The work of the re-girdering of the bridge on the Tunga river in the Mysuru division was completed on May 3. Dismantling of an unsafe deck of Kopar Road ROB near Dombivali in the Mumbai division was completed on April 30.
