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NEW DELHI: The railways said chronic train delays would ease in seven to eight months as ongoing work related to track renewal and elimination of unmanned level crossings, the main reasons for such holdups, would be over by then.

A top railway official said maintenance of its vast network would remain the top priority as the state-run transporter has decided not to operate trains in “unsafe” conditions. Railway board member (traffic) M Jamshed said around 5,000 km of tracks was renewed in 2017-18 and work was underway to achieve the target of around 4,000 km in the current financial year.

Another official said, “Punctuality is affected because infrastructure creation is happening at the same time.”

The official said the situation had come to pass due to “decades of negligence” of infrastructure and announcement of new trains under political pressure without putting adequate systems in place.

