At a time when Indian Railways is facing flak for delays and deficient project planning, the Railway Board has flagged that poor quality of detailed project reports (DPRs) is delaying projects because multiple review meetings have to be held to rectify the bad quality of the reports.
Currently, 156 projects, mostly new line and doubling, worth nearly Rs 1 lakh crore, failed to meet the targeted date of completion, and the DPRs for the projects still remain incomplete.
It is noted that the quality of DPRs is not upto the mark and requires improvement. Even important aspects such as detailed justification, traffic survey, financial/economic appraisal which forms the crux of DPR, are not properly incorporated in the DPR.
Seeking prompt action, the Railway Board has asked the concerned zones to rectify the mistakes and initiate corrective measures in this regard.
While South Eastern zone has maximum of 28 such faulty DPRs followed by Western zone with 24 DPRs and Eastern zone with 16 DPRs, almost all zones are facing this problem.
In order to streamline and bring in uniformity and quality in preparation of DPRs, detailed guidelines have been issued by Network planning Group of the NITI Aayog.
Some of the projects stuck for bad quality DPRs are 162-km-long new line between Jalna-Khamgaon estimated to cost Rs 4,538.88 crore, 138-km-long new line between Bargad-Naupada estimated to cost Rs 2,200.16 crore, 255.5-km-long doubling between Narkatiaganj-Raxaul-Sitamarhi-Darbhanga and Sitamarhi-Muzaffarpur section estimated to cost Rs 4,081.48 crore.
Other such projects include 69.92-km-long new line between Godda-Pakur with an estimated cost of Rs 2,080.46 crore, 328-km-long Dholpur-Jhansi-Bina fourth line estimated to cost Rs 6,450.05 crore, the 101-km-long Meerut (Daurala)-Panipat new line with Rs 2,387 crore cost, and the 62.56 km long construction of standard gauge dedicated test track for testing and trial of rolling stock between Gudha-Thathana Mithari at an estimated cost of Rs 905.8 crore.
The Railways maintains that planning of projects at DPR stage is the most critical activity for successful execution of project in time bound manner. The Railways has sought that DPRs are critically reviewed at zonal railway before submission to Railway Board.