An investment of Rs75,000 crore will be made over the next seven years to augment line capacity on identified routes to create the required capacity for carrying an additional 310 million tonnes.

Railways minister, Lalu Prasad made this announcement while presenting the Railway Budget 2008-09 in the Lok Sabha today.

The minister said that a blue print on the route-wise detailed study has been prepared and accordingly, route-wise works would be undertaken in a phased manner. This would include 124 works of doubling, third and fourth lines, bye-passes, flyovers, crossing stations, intermediate block stations, automatic signaling works and yard remodelling.

Yadav said that the works include construction of the eastern and western corridors and sad that 104 throughput enhancement works, already in progress, would be completed over the next two years. He said that the entire network would be provided with Intermediate Block Stations (IBS) by March next year.

(Also See: Rs25,000-crore surplus in 2007-08, futuristic rail budget with reduced fares in 2008-09)