Indian Railways on Wednesday received a major infrastructure fillip with the approval for the construction of six rail lines and a railway bridge to cater to increased passenger and freight needs. Chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) gave its nod for the construction in a 908-km stretch costing over Rs10,700 crore.
The expansion includes doubling of Hubli-Chickajur line, Wardha (Sewagram)-Ballarshah third line, doubling of Ramna-Singrauli line, third line between Anuppur-Katni, doubling of Katni-Singrauli line and an additional bridge, and doubling of Rampur Dumra-Tal-Rajendrapul line.
The doubling of 190-km long Hubli-Chickajur railway line is likely to be completed in four years during the 13th Plan period and will cover Chitradurga, Davangere, Haveri and Dharwad areas of Karnataka. The Pune-Miraj-Hubli-Bangalore route has been identified for doubling, which will improve rail traffic flow and boost overall development of the region.
The stretch is part of an important rail link of passenger trains between Mumbai and Bangalore and goods trains to the ports at Mangalore. The doubling of tracks between Bangalore-Tumkur and Arsikere-Chickajur has already been completed on this link. Doubling work between Hubli and londa — part of Hubli-londa- Vasco-da-Gama — is in progress.
Construction of the 132-km long Wardha (Sewagram)-Ballarshah third railway line in Wardha and Chandrapur districts of Maharashtra is likely to be completed in five years. The line capacity utilisation of the section is saturated and running of additional Mail/Express and goods traffic over causes delay in movement of the trains.
In order to attain the desired fluidity and increase in the sectional capacity, doubling of this single line section is very essential from operational point of view. Construction of 165-km-long third railway line between Anuppur and Katni in Madhya Pradesh has also been approved at a cost of Rs1,595.76 crore. The project is likely to be completed in over five years spanning over the 12th and the 13th plan period. Besides, the ambitious 56-km long dedicated freight track between Sasaram and Durgavati of the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor is also going to be commissioned shortly as the line is awaiting safety clearance.
Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation (DFCC) Managing Director Adesh Sharma said after getting Commissioner of Railway Safety clearance, the line will be commissioned between Sasaram and Durgavati.
“While this will be first section of the DFC to become operational, the entire DFC will be operational by 2019. Once the entire track is operational then railway share in loadings will go up to 45 per cent from the current 36 per cent,” Sharma said.
Sharma said once the entire DFC is operational the speed of freight trains will go up to 75-km per hour from the current 25 kmph. He said four additional freight corridors are being planned to seamless movement of goods in the country.
The entire DFC will have no level crossings as there will be either ROB (Railway over bridges) or RUB (Railway under bridges) at crossings to facilitate seamless movement of goods trains and train protection warning system to prevent accident would also be in place.
Sharma also announced that five multi-modal logistic parks including one on the river front at Varanasi at an estimated cost of Rs 5,000 crore would also be set up along the DFC spanning across the country. The logistics hubs are proposed to come up in Gujarat, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra.
The logistics parks would facilitate the last mile connectivity in terms of door to door services for customers besides giving value addition including packaging, retailing, labelling, transportation of the goods on the dedicated tracks.