Indian Railways target to triple its freight traffic by 2030: Piyush Goyal

The Indian Railways has set a target to triple its freight traffic to 3 billion tonne by 2030, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said today.

He said the railways was looking to come out with a “reciprocation” strategy on bidding for major projects.

Under the strategy, companies from only those countries which allow Indian firms to bid for their development projects would be allowed to participate in similar projects in India, Goyal said.

“As we are taking steps to become a USD 10 trillion economy, we want to increase the share of railways freight traffic to 3 billion tonne from the current 1.1 billion tonne,” the minister told reporters here.

Goyal also said that the plan was to increase the railways’ share in the overall goods movement to 50 per cent from the current share of around 35 per cent.

Senior officials said that railways has completed a record 476-km track renewal in the month of December. It expects to touch 3,500-km of track renewal in 2017-18, they said.