New Delhi: Amrit Bharat Station Scheme (ABSS) is the world's biggest railway station redevelopment programme and any programme of this size has never been taken up in history, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told media persons on Monday. While providing the media with an update on the ongoing work under the scheme, he praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for laying the foundation stone for 553 stations and inaugurating a station which has been redeveloped under the scheme. Besides, Prime Minister Modi also inaugurated or laid the foundation stone for 1500 road-over bridges (ROBs) and underpasses.
The Railway Ministry launched ABSS in 2023 under which stations are being identified and shortlisted for redevelopment for better passenger facilities and amenities. To date, 1321 stations out of 7000 have been selected by the railways for redevelopment. Many of them are at different stages of construction.
The construction work will start here now after the Prime Minister laid the foundation stone of 553 stations. Mr Vaishnaw said the Prime Minister's growth strategy is based on public investment. Because of that, the investment as a percentage of GDP has gone beyond 30 per cent, he said. "The Capex in railways has reached up to 2 lakh 52 thousand crore which used to be a very small amount a decade ago," Mr Viashnaw said, adding that its benefits are visible on the ground.
According to the him, while the railways used to lay track at the speed of 4 km per day between 2004 to 2014, today it has gone up to 15 km per day. Similarly, 41,000 km of railway track has been electrified in these 10 years, he said.
He added that the work which the current government has done in the past 10 years is equivalent to the work done in 60 years. Emphasising the progress of flyovers and underpasses, Mr Vaishnaw said from 2004 to 2014, a total of 4400 flyovers and underpasses were constructed. This comes to around 400 in one year. But today over 1000 flyovers and underpasses are being constructed every year, he said.
"It is a complex work to build world-class stations but the government undertook several reforms to implement these schemes. Also, massive work is going on at all stations irrespective of their sizes and places," Mr Vaishnaw said.
"Ten years ago, only bigger stations were given importance. But this government has treated big, middle and small size stations equally for development work," Mr Vaishnaw added, showing the pictures of ongoing work of dozens of stations at various locations in the country.
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