The “Mission Raftaar” announced in the Railway Budget 2016-17 envisages improving of average speeds of passenger and freight trains. Action Plan for improving mobility and increasing average speed includes removal of speed restrictions, construction of Road Over Bridges (ROBs) and Road Under Bridges (RUBs), right powering of trains and replacement of conventional trains by Main Line Electric Multiple Unit (MEMU) trains and Diesel Electric Multiple Unit (DEMU) trains.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved two projects for raising of speed to 160 kilometre per hour (kmph) on existing New Delhi- Mumbai (including Vadodara- Ahmedabad) and New Delhi-Howrah (including Kanpur-Lucknow) routes on 5th August, 2019.

Execution of projects being planned simultaneously on entire route length and will be monitored for expeditious completion. These corridors are part of Golden Quadrilateral and Diagonals of Indian Railways - A network of six routes which consist of 16% of total Indian Railways network, yet carry 52% of total passenger traffic and 58% of total freight traffic carried by Indian Railways.

This information was given by the Minister of Railways and Commerce & Industry, Shri Piyush Goyal in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.

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