Rising India
Railway systems
Indian Railways is one of the largest railways under single management. It carries some 17 million passengers and 2 million tonnes of freight a day in year 2007 and is one of the world’s largest employers. The railways play a leading role in carrying passengers and cargo across India's vast territory. However, most of its major corridors have capacity constraint requiring capacity enhancement plans. The Indian government is in the process to reduce the congestion on rail corridors along the highly trafficked Golden Quadrilateral and improving port connectivity by launching the National Rail Vikas Yojana (National Railway Development Program).
As a part of it vision for the future, Indian Railways (IR) is attempting a shift from its traditional approach of bottleneck removal to creation of infrastructure ahead of requirement. Initiatives like construction of new lines, gauge conversion, doubling of lines, and enhancing the rolling stock manufacturing capacity for locomotives and coaches are high on its agenda. New Greenfield manufacturing units for diesel and electrical locomotives, coaches, electric multiple units (EMUs), wheel and axles have been planned.
