North Central Railway completes significant doubling, tripling and quadrupling work in 2021-22Timely Infrastructure expansion is the key for ensuring good mobility and punctuality: GM NCR80.48% punctuality of coaching trains in NCR in 2021-22Year 2021-22 has been an year of achievements for NCR. Massive infrastructure expansion works have taken place and commissioned during the year. These include:51.2 km of doubling was carried out in 2021-22. Different sections of Kanpur- Virangana Lakshmibai route were opened in the year. Entire Kanpur-Virangana Lakshmibai section will be a double line section in 2022. Under this doubling project, Bhimsen to Paman doubling of 17 kilometer is expected to be completed in April itself. Tripling work of 29.35 km got completed which includes Virangana Lakshmibai to Babina and Naini to Prayagraj Chheoki sections of Jhansi and Prayagraj divisions respectively. In April itself Lalitpur to Bijrotha tripling of 28 km is also planned to be completed. The work is a part of Jhansi-Bina third line project.28.04 Km of quadrupling work between Chhata-Ajhai-Vrindavan-Bhuteshwear of Agra Division also got completed this year. With this, entire 80 km of Mathura-Palwal fourth line project got completed in 2021-22. In April 2022, fourth line between Bhaupur and Panki (10.245 km) of Prayagraj Division is planned to be commissioned.
In addition to it, 18 new Foot over Bridges were constructed and 46 FOBs were rehabilitated during the year at different stations of NCR. Similarly, 08 new Road over Bridges (ROB) were commissioned and 46 new Road under Bridges (RUB) were completed in 2021-22. To facilitate passenger convenience, 08 stations over NCR were provided with the facility of Cover over Platforms and platform extension work was completed at 21 stations of NCR.With the expansion of infrastructure, mobility of NCR is also stepping up. It is due to the cumulative effect of both factors namely better operations planning and infrastructure expansion that punctuality of coaching trains in NCR has improved drastically in last few years. While punctuality of coaching trains in NCR was around 52 % in 2017-18, as a result of capacity enhancement, NCR punctuality clocked at 80.48%. This may be said as the best ever annual punctuality figure of NCR as although as per statistics punctuality was 86.92% in 2020-21 but considering the fact that COVID was at its peak and little trains were operated in 2020-21, punctuality figures of 2021-22 gives a true picture of improvement in train operations.GM NCR Shri Pramod Kumar says that until and unless structural bottlenecks are removed and capacity expansion done in correspondence with the rising demand, mobility cannot be improved. Thus it is important that field officers should work harder for timely execution and completion of infrastructure projects. Shri Kumar also said that it is the responsibility of officers to foresee and plan timely for future requirements.
