Snapshot

Touching bullet speeds

India has the fourth-largest railway system in the world, behind only US, Russia and China.

The Indian Railways consists of a total track length of 126,366 km over a 67,956 km of route along with 7,335 stations. The railways operates 13,523 passenger trains and 9,146 freight trains daily. The railway sector in India has loaded 1418.1 MT of freight during FY 2021-22, registering an 15% increase in freight loading from the last year. Indian Railways is the single largest employer in India and eighth largest in the world, employing approximately 1.3 Mn people.

  • Vision 2024 has been envisaged to achieve targets of 2024 MT freight loading by 2024
  • Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail project sanctioned at a total cost of $14.27 bn
  • The railway sector of India aims to electrify the entire network by 2023 which will lead to annual energy savings of $1.55 bn
  • Record electrification of 6,366 RKMs has been achieved in IR history during FY 2021-22. Previous highest electrification was 6,015 RKM during FY 2020-21. As on 31.03.2022, out of 65,141 RKM of BG network of IR (including KRCL), 52,247 BG RKM has been electrified, which is 80.20% of the total BG network
  • Indian Railways has commissioned Wi-Fi at 6,089 Railway stations across the country
  • In order to achieve its green mission, Indian Railways has solarised more than 1000 stations
  • 2000 Km of railway network to be brought under Kavach, the indigenous world class TCAS in 2022-23. Kavach has been commissioned at over 850 Rkm in FY22
  • 400 new generation Vande Bharat Trains to be manufactured during the next three years
  • 100 PM Gati Shakti Cargo terminals for multimodal logistics to be developed during the next three years

 

100% FDI allowed in railway infrastructure under the automatic route.

For further details, please refer FDI Policy

  • bn

    Annual Estimated Passengers in 2031

  • MT

    Annual Estimated Freight Demand in 2031

  • MT

    Freight Loading by 2024

  • $ bn

    Revenue from freight traffic (2021)

4th largest railway system in the world

4th largest rail freight carrier in the world

Single largest employer in India and 8th largest in the world

Industry Scenario

The Indian Railways' freight revenues in 2021 were worth $16 bn.

Following the Mantra, “Hungry For Cargo”, Indian Railways has made sustained efforts to improve the ease of doing business as well as improve the service delivery at competitive prices which has resulted in new traffic coming to railways from both conventional and non-conventional commodity streams. The customer centric approach and work of business development units backed up by agile policy making has helped the Railways breach the 1400 MT Freight Loading mark for 1st time ever in Financial Year-2021-22. The Originating Freight Loading of Indian Railways for the FY 2021-22 stood at 1418.1 MT (provisional) which is 15% more than the previous best set in FY 2020-21 at 1233.2 MT.

  • The railway sector in India aims to contribute about 1.5% to the country’s GDP by building infrastructure to support 45% of the modal freight share of the economy
  • Two Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFC), one on the Western route (Jawaharlal Nehru Port to Dadri) and another on the Eastern route (Ludhiana to Dankuni), have been fast-tracked
  • The railway sector in India has the highest ever planned capital expenditure of $32 bn in 2022-23
  • The average Freight Train speed has increased to 44.36 kmph during 2021-22 compared to 42.97kmph during 2020-21 (+3.23 %) (upto 31.12. 2021)
  • Record electrification of 6,366 RKMs has been achieved in IR history during FY 2021-22
  • New Line/ Doubling/ Gauge Conversion: 2904 km was achieved in FY 2021-22 which is 23% higher than last year. It is also the Highest ever commissioning (excluding DFC)
  • The IR achieved the Highest ever Electric Loco Production & induction of 1,110 Locos in FY 2021-22

 

GROWTH DRIVERS

  • Exponential Rise in passenger & freight traffic

    Railway passenger traffic is projected to reach around 12 Bn per year by 2031 and Freight traffic is expected to cross 8,220 Mn Tonnes by 2031

  • Freight shift towards railways

    National Rail Plan aims to increase the modal share of Railways in freight to 45% by 2030 from existing 27%

  • Dedicated freight corridor

    Six high-capacity, high-speed dedicated freight corridors

  • Freight Business Development Portal

    One-stop cargo solution for seamless goods transportation

  • Diamond Quadrilateral network of high-speed rail

    Connecting major metros and growth centers of the country

  • Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan - Self Reliant India

    Special economic and comprehensive package of INR 20 lakh crores towards promoting manufacturing in India

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FAQs

Frequently
Asked Questions

What are PM Gati Shakti Multi-modal Cargo Terminals?

In order to boost investments from industry in development of additional terminals for handling rail cargos, a new ‘Gati Shakti Multi-modal Cargo Terminal (GCT)’ policy has been framed. All new as well as under-construction/under-approval Cargo Terminals shall be covered under this policy.
The policy seeks to promote proliferation of new Cargo Terminals and improve existing Cargo Terminals through investments from industry to accelerate the growth in Railways’ cargo traffic. 
The salient features of Gati Shakti Cargo Terminals (GCTs) are as under –

  1. Simplified application and approval process, for quick and hassle-free approvals.
  2. No departmental charges will be levied on the applicant.
  3. No Land License Fees to be charged for the Railway land used for connectivity.
  4. No cost of commercial staff to be charged
  5. All common-user traffic facilities at the serving station to be constructed and maintained by Railway
  6. For Terminals giving 1 MT or more outward traffic, cost of mid-section Block Hut/ Block station to be reimbursed as 10% freight rebate.
  7. Maintenance of all assets (track, signalling, OHE) by Railway at its own cost, excluding the yard and loading/unloading lines
  8. Railway will reserve the right to grant connectivity to another Terminal(s) from such portions of track being maintained by Railway

Union Budget 2022-23 has announced the target to set up 100 GCTs within the next three financial years.
 

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What is National Rail Plan 2030?

Indian Railways have prepared a National Rail Plan (NRP) for India – 2030. The Plan is to create a ‘future ready’ Railway system by 2030.  The NRP is aimed to formulate strategies based on both operational capacities and commercial policy initiatives to increase modal share of the Railways in freight to 45%. The objective of the Plan is to create capacity ahead of demand, which in turn would also cater to future growth in demand right up to 2050 and also increase the modal share of Railways to 45% in freight traffic and to continue to sustain it. 
The key objectives of the National Rail Plan are:  

  • Formulate strategies based on both operational capacities and commercial policy initiatives to increase modal share of the Railways in freight to 45% by 2030
  • Reduce transit time of freight substantially by increasing average speed of freight trains to 50Kmph
  • As part of the National Rail Plan, Vision 2024 has been launched for accelerated implementation of certain critical projects by 2024 such as 100% electrification, multi-tracking of congested routes, upgradation of speed to 160 kmph on Delhi-Howrah and Delhi-Mumbai routes, upgradation of speed to 130kmph on all other Golden Quadrilateral-Golden Diagonal (GQ/GD) routes and elimination of all Level Crossings on all GQ/GD route.
  • Identify new Dedicated Freight Corridors.
  • Identify new High Speed Rail Corridors.
  • Assess rolling stock requirement for passenger traffic as well as wagon requirement for freight.
  • Assess Locomotive requirement to meet twin objectives of 100% electrification (Green Energy) and increasing freight modal share.
  • Assess the total investment in capital that would be required along with a periodical break up.
  • Sustained involvement of the Private Sector in areas like operations and ownership of rolling stock, development of freight and passenger terminals, development/operations of track infrastructure etc.

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How much FDI is allowed under Metro sector?

Up to 100% FDI is permitted for Railway Infrastructure sector without any govt. approval. You can file your FDI application online along with supporting documents at http://fifp.gov.in.

For more information, click here.

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What is the purpose of SFOORTI?

The Ministry of Railways, Government of India, has launched the Smart Freight Operation Optimisation & Real Time Information (SFOORTI) application to optimise freight operations and manage traffic flows.

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What is R3i policy?

The policy aims to attract private sector participation in rail connectivity projects to create additional rail transport capacity. The policy allows for 4 models: 
a) Cost Sharing-Freight Rebate.
b) Full Contribution- Apportioned Earnings.
c) Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV). 
d) Private Line.

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