In a major rail project to benefit Bihar as well as north eastern region, the Centre on Thursday approved a new rail line in north Bihar to hold capacity of running of semi high speed trains and further connecting the ports in West Bengal and Odisha. The approved doubling of the Narkatiaganj-Raxaul-Sitamarhi-Darbhanga and Sitamarhi-Muzaffarpur section in Bihar covering 256 km will also strengthen the connectivity to Nepal, Northeast India and border areas and facilitating movement of high speed passenger trains along with goods train resulting in the socio-economic growth of the region.
The Union Cabinet also approved a 57-km-long line to connect Andhra Pradesh's new capital Amravati and both the Bihar and Andhra rail projects are worth Rs 6,798 crore. "To provide connectivity to Amravati, a new 57-km-long line worth Rs 2,245 crore will be constructed. For this, a 3.2-km-long new bridge will be constructed on the Krishna river which will be among longest bridges of the Indian Railway," Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said.
He added that this ambitious project will provide connectivity from Amravati to all metros including Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkatta. "The new rail line project Errupalem-Amaravati-Namburu traverses through NTR Vijayawada and Guntur districts of Andhra Pradesh and Khammam district of Telangana," it added.
Vaishnaw also spoke to Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan about the decisions of the Union Cabinet. According to the government, these two projects covering eight districts in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Bihar will increase the existing network of Indian Railways by about 313 km.
Highlighting the benefits of these two projects, it said the new line project will provide connectivity to approximately 168 villages and about 12 lakh population with 9 new stations. Besides, it added, the multi-tracking project will enhance connectivity to two aspirational districts (Sitamarhi and Muzaffarpur) serving approximately 388 villages and about 9 lakh population.
According to the government, these are essential routes for transportation of commodities such as agriculture products, fertilizer, coal, iron ore, steel and cement. Talking about the impact on freight operations, it mentioned that the capacity augmentation works will result in additional freight traffic of magnitude 31 MTPA (million tonnes per annum).
"The Railways being an environment friendly and energy efficient mode of transportation, will help both in achieving climate goals and minimizing logistics cost of the country, lower CO2 emissions (168 crore Kg) which is equivalent to plantation of 7 crore trees," the release said.
