Cabinet approves two rail projects involving Rs6,405-cr expenditure

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved two rail track doubling projects covering seven districts in Jharkhand, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, adding a total 381 km of new railway tracks.

The upgraded sections will help make travel more convenient, reduce logistic cost and improve efficiency of rail operations, making it more sustainable. Besides, the project will generate 10.8 million of mandays during construction phase. 

The projects include the doubling of tracks of the 133-km Koderma – Barkakana rail line that serves the coal producing areas of Jharkhand and offers the shortest and convenient rail link between Patna and Ranchi, and the doubling of tracks of the 185-km Ballari – Chikjajur railway line that passes through Ballari and Chitradurga districts of Karnataka and Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh. 

The doubling of tracks will significantly increase traffic capacity by improving operational efficiency and reliability of service. The double-tracking of the rail lines are part of the government’s PM-Gati Shakti National Master Plan, which aims at seamless connectivity through multi-modal connectivity, made possible through integrated planning. It will also help provide seamless connectivity for movement of people, goods and services. 

The two projects will serve seven districts connecting 1,408 villages with a population of around 2.82 million across the states of Jharkhand, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh and also expand Indian Railway’s route network by about 318 km. 

Since these lines cater to freight traffic involving commodities such as coal, iron ore, finished steel, cement, fertilisers, agriculture commodities, petroleum products etc, the enhanced capacity will augment freight traffic of an estimated 49 million tonnes a year. It would also result in lower environment pollution and reduced logistics cost for a number of commodities.