The Union Minister of Railways, Communications and Electronic & Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw today unveiled the ‘The Indian Railways Construction Manual, 2023’ in New Delhi. Addressing the gathering after launching the manual, the Union Minister for Railways, Communications and Electronic & Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw said, “The construction manual will help in many activities including Land acquisition, forest clearance, bridge design, contract management, tunnel construction, road flyover/ under bridges. This manual would help us to achieve to become the world’s fastest growing rail network.”  

Shri Vaishnaw further said “It is a real pleasure that the construction manual is now in a new form and in tune with our time. Since Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi has taken charge, Railway has been his focus including construction of new tracks and stations and in this mission, this manual will play a key role as the previous version of the manual was old (around 1960) and now new reforms have been incorporated including EPC contracts, bridge construction, execution of signaling, electrical and non-interlocking works etc. which have now been standardized through the new manual”.

The Union Minister also appreciated the work done by Shri Roop Narayan Sunkar, former Member (Infrastructure), Railway Board and the entire team in preparing this manual. Indian Railway Institute of Civil Engineering and the team of construction officers of different zonal railways have prepared this manual. This manual is an important milestone in the efforts of Indian Railways to equip the construction officials with the required knowledge for execution of construction projects at a faster pace.

As per the National Rail Plan, Indian Railways has to develop capacity by year 2030 that will cater to the growing demand up to year 2050. To achieve this, Indian Railways has to increase its pace of building its infrastructure i.e. commissioning of super critical and critical projects, construction of new lines; completion of gauge conversion, multi tracking, automatic signaling and traffic facility works etc.

To guide construction officials, a need was therefore felt to have a manual covering various aspects of construction. The manual has been prepared in the simple language which can be understood easily by field officials.

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AS/PS