Electrification of Jammu-Pathankot railway line
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, May 1: Though the electrification related infrastructure on Jammu-Pathankot railway line will be in place by the end of current year yet several bottlenecks relating to supply of power are yet to be sorted out between Railways’ concerned wing and Power Development Department of the State Government.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that the officers of concerned wing of the railways have held number of meetings with the concerned authorities of the Power Development Department but the same failed to yield any positive outcome and all the issues of extending power supply to railways infrastructure remained unresolved till date.
Disclosing that railways’ electrification wing has identified location at Samba from where the power supply will be made to the electrification network on Jammu-Pathankot line, they said, “it is yet to be sorted out as to whether Power Development Department’s grid sub-station at Samba or the upcoming grid of the Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (PGCIL) would provide power supply to the sub-station of the railways”.
According to the sources, the railways authorities had provided an amount of Rs 3 lakh to the Power Development Department for preparing estimates of works required to be carried out to connect grid sub-station of PDD with that of railways at Samba several months back but till date the same are yet to be finalized.
“In the absence of estimates the railway authorities would not be in a position to release funds for creating necessary infrastructure vis-à-vis connecting grid sub-station of Power Development Department with that of the railways”, sources further said while mentioning that since electrification project is funded by the Union Railway Ministry there would be no constraints of funds.
It is pertinent to mention here that work on electrification of Jammu-Pathankot railway line is going on at required pace and as per the recent statement of General Manager Railway Electrification, Jagdev Kalia, the same would be completed by the end of current year.
“Apart from infrastructure related bottlenecks, the terms and conditions on which the power supply would be made for chugging of Electric Multiple Units (EMUs) on Jammu-Pathankot railway line have also been not settled between electrification wing of railways and Power Development Department”, sources said.
“While the authorities of electrification wing of the railways want PDD to treat them on the pattern of other States of the country, the PDD is insisting on signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the pattern of one it has signed with the Konkan Railways Construction Limited (KRCL)”, sources said while disclosing that railways electrification wing has projected requirement of 5 MVA of electricity at the initial stage and informed the Power Development Department that further requirement of electricity would depend upon the train operations.
Since the meetings held so far have failed to yield any positive result, the senior officers of the Electrification Wing of the railways have decided to approach Principal Secretary, Power Development Department, Sudhanshu Pandey in near future so that all the bottlenecks are sorted out and necessary infrastructure is created well before the completion of electrification related works, sources said.
“Since electrification of Jammu-Udhampur railway line is also targeted to be completed by the end of next year, both the Electrification Wing of railways and PDD should work in tandem to ensure that the ambitious project don’t face any hurdle and is completed well within the stipulated time-frame”, sources stressed.
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