Welcoming the approval given by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) for the doubling of Hatia-Bondamunda Railway line, Chief Minister Raghubar Das called it a “Holi gift” that will further increase business opportunities for the people of Jharkhand. Doubling of this line will augment the line capacity of the section and serve freight traffic needs of the upcoming Super Thermal Power Plant at Barch and other Thermal Power Plants like Katni and Baruni. The construction of double line will also ease traffic bottlenecks on the line.
The CCEA, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently gave its approval for doubling of 158.5 km stretch Ranchi-Bondamunda Railway line with a completion cost of Rs 921.94 crore. The project is likely to be completed in the next six years during the 12th and 13th Plan period.
Ranchi, Gumla and Simdega districts of Jharkhand along with Sundargarh district of Odisha will be benefited through this project.
The business fraternity has also welcomed the move and said that it will further increase business opportunities for the people of Jharkhand.
“With this we expect more trains for the destinations like Ahmedabad and Surat which will further increase business opportunities here in Jharkhand,” said Federation of Jharkhand Chamber of Commerce and Industries president Pawan Sharma. Common people will also get benefitted as it will further lead to increase in connectivity to some of the import cities like Bangalore, Chennai, Ahmedabad and Surat, added Sharma.
With the expansion of the Bokaro Steel Plant and Rourkela Steel Plant, the utilization of the existing line capacity will be to the tune of 226 per cent and 171 per cent respectively. The additional volume of raw materials and finished steel that will move over the project section will be at the level of 10 MTPA by 2025-26.
Proposed Ranchi (Hatia)-Bondamunda line is a single line section which is being used for goods traffic to and from Bokaro Steel Plant and Rourkela Steel Plant and an average of 22 trains each way per day run over these sections. This indicates that the line is over saturated with utilization to the tune of an average of 160 per cent resulting in detention of trains and consequential loss of revenue.
Hence to cope up with the existing as well as additional traffic, doubling of the whole section is required or else the Railways will face capacity crunch in this already saturated section.