NEW DELHI: The railways have finally identified the projects that will be funded by the Rs 1.5-lakh-crore loan that Life Insurance Corporation ( LIC ) has extended to the cash-strapped organization for the next five years.Railway officials claim that the organization is under close scrutiny of Prime Minister Narendra Modi , who thinks that a robust railways can greatly contribute to the country’s economy.“He is personally reviewing the progress of critical railway projects and urging the ministry to hasten the speed of implementation,” a senior Railway Board official told ET.Initially struggling to identify projects to be funded by the LIC, the railways have now shortlisted 24 corridors for expansion and strengthening from the loan money.The railways had signed an MoU with LIC in March to meet its capital requirement for network decongestion and expansion by 2019. Railway officials say though there is “endless work” to be done in railways, it took them time to find projects for LIC since the insurer was keen to invest only in financially viable projects that earned a rate of return (RoR) of at least 14% every year.“Since the priority of railway minister Suresh Prabhu is network decongestion, 24 congested corridors have been identified where LIC funds will be utilized. Most of the sections in the corridors will yield a high RoR, going as high as 48% like the Rajkharsawan-Sini section in the Howrah-Mumbai corridor,” explained another official.The identified corridors include the golden quadrilateral—Howrah-Channai, Delhi-Howrah, Howrah-Mumbai, Delhi-Chennai, Chennai-Mumbai and Mumbai-Delhi. In addition, some other corridors have been identified like the highly congested Amritsar-Ludhiana-Saharanpur-Moradabad-Lucknow-Sultanpur-Zafrabad-Mughalsarai-Varanasi route.“The Mughalsarai section of Northern Railway is by far the worst section as far as congestion is concerned. It is over utilised by 150% of its capacity,” the railway official said.“The minister’s priority was to pick choked corridors and decongest them by capacity augmentation. This is necessary for improving the safety of railway network too,” he added.The railways are confident that the work will be completed as per laid down timelines. “This is the first time that railways have assured funding for capacity enhancement projects.In the past, the problem has been lack of consistent funding. A few lakh or a couple of crores were earmarked for projects every year that needed a much higher sustained investment.So, the cost of project kept increasing and the deadline kept getting pushed,” explained an official from engineering department dealing with projects.An official spokesperson said that the minister was also tracking the projects closely using IT for online monitoring of the progress of the projects.