The ministry of railways has envisioned Mission Raftaar to reach the goal of doubling the average speed of freight trains and increasing the average speed of superfast, mail, and express trains by 25 kmph, Minister of Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw said in a written reply  in Rajya Sabha.

The minister said that it is not a stand alone project and the overall allocation and utilisation of funds under Mission Raftaar can not be quantified.

Mission Raftaar

• Mission Raftaar was announced in the Railway Budget 2016-17. 

• 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 Mainline Electric Multiple Unit (MEMU) trains and Diesel Electric Multiple Unit (DEMU) trains.

• The overall punctuality and travel time of Indian Railways’ train operations were examined in the CAG report, which was presented during Budget Session 2022. 

• One of the documents utilised as audit criteria for the creation of the report is Mission Raftaar.

• The CAG report analysed the punctuality and travel time in train operations in Indian Railways as a whole. 

• Speeding up of trains is a constant endeavour and a continuous process on Indian Railways which is dependent on constant optimisation of the investments made by Railways in modernisation of technology, high powered locos, modern coaches and better tracks. 

• To this end Indian Railways are proliferating Linke-Hofmann-Busch (LHB)  coaches which have higher speed potential, converting passenger trains operating with conventional coaches into MEMU services (which have higher acceleration/deceleration owing to distrusted power). 

• Between 2015-16 and 2021-22, as many as 414 passenger train services have been converted into MEMU services.

• Railways is constructing more than 3,000 km of Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC), which would enable freight trains to run at speed of 100 kmph.

• There is marked improvement in average freight train speed. Between 2016-17 and 2020-21, average speed of freight trains has increased from 23.7 km/hr to 41.2 km/hr.

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