The average speed of mail-express trains did not increase despite the central government spending Rs 2.5 lakh crore on railway track infrastructure in a decade. The government started the Mission Raftaar campaign to increase the speed of passenger trains. But this too did not have much effect.
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), in its report tabled in Parliament on Wednesday, said that an investment of 2.5 lakh crores was made in the Railways between 2008 and 2019. Even then mobility has not been able to improve the outcome. Mission Raftaar, launched in 2016-17, had set an average speed of 50 km per hour for mail-express and 75 km per hour for freight trains by 2021-22.
Till 2019-20, the average speed of Mail-Express was around 50.6 kmph and that of Goods train was around 23.6 kmph. The report mentions that 123 (26 per cent) of the 478 super fast trains had an average speed of less than 55 kmph.
13 crores wasted
The Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) could not fully utilize World Bank funds, resulting in payment of charges amounting to Rs 16 crore. Unnecessary expenditure of Rs 285 crore was made during the land acquisition process. RailTel returned the allotted spectrum without utilisation. Due to which 13 crores spent on charges on royalty of spectrum went waste.