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| Common rail-road-pipeline corridor mooted for Talcher area |
| Bishnu Dash / Kolkata/ Bhubaneswar Oct 19, 2009, 00:10 IST |
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With a view to facilitate movement of coal in the Talcher coalfield area, the Orissa government plans to develop a common 'rail-road-water pipeline and infrastructure corridor' in Meramundali-Angul-Talcher-Chhendipada belt.
The project will cost an estimated Rs 5000 crore including Rs 2000 crore for 2-line corridor and Rs 1100 crore for 4 lane road along the corridor.
The land width of the proposed corridor will be 300 metre which includes 60 metre for road and 20 metre for water pipeline. The total length of the corridor is 137 kilometre which includes length of 43 number of major bridges to be constructed on this stretch.
RITES Ltd has already submitted a pre-feasibility report to the state owned Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation of Orissa Ltd. (Idco) on the project.
RITES was appointed as the consultant by Idco for taking up a comprehensive planning for the development of this corridor.
The proposed corridor will be connected to rail line at three locations- Jharpada, Angul and Budhapanka. The common corridor will have multiple entry and exit points and no surface crossing. Besides, flyovers have also been proposed to avoid cross movements at junction stations.
The project is designed to have multi-point centralised loading stations conceived along the corridor rather than individual bulb connections with a view to avoid interference or wastage of coal bearing areas. Road and water pipe alignment will run parallel to rail alignment, sources said.
As per the data collected by RITES, fifty seven industries are likely to benefit from the proposed corridor and the number is likely to increase in future with the allotment of coal blocks to more companies in this area.
Out of it, 23 are in the steel sector, 22 in the power sector and the remaining 12 are in other sectors.
Sources said, among the industries currently operating in the area, MCL has a private railway siding, Nalco has a Merry-Go-Round (MGR) and NTPC has a private railway siding-MGR. But the state government is reluctant to provide land to more industries for construction of private railway.
Apart from wastage of land for each company having a separate private railway siding, the companies do not require it always which keeps the capacity utilisation at the lowest level.
According to an estimate, in next 20 years, 120 goods train will have to move out of the site carrying coal, which will be a herculean task. In this backdrop, the proposed project is expected to solve the coal movement problem that is likely to surface in the near future.
Though the modalities of implementing the plan has not been decided yet, the government intends to implement the project through private participation. A Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) is proposed to be formed with equity participation of industries.
"Though the mode of implementation is not decided yet, we intend to rope in private companies as equity partners for the project. However, the final decision will be taken at the highest level", Saurava Garg, secretay, industry, Orissa government told Business Standard.
Meanwhile, the state owned Idco has written a letter to RITES and RVNL seeking their opinion on whether they would like to implement the proposed corridor.
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