Railway Board clears new projects for U'khand

The Railway Board on Wednesday cleared a series of new projects including the Rs 160.01-crore Muzaffar Nagar-Roorkee line for Uttarakhand. The board, however, found the key Rishikesh-Karanprayag project unviable.

The projects were cleared at a high-level meeting attended by Railway Board chairman SS Khurana, state chief secretary Indu Kumar Pande and other top officials here.

The meeting also agreed to hold fresh survey for the Tanakpur-Bageshwar line in the Kumaon region. The railway officials said the Rs 4,500 crore Rishikesh-Karanprayag project was not commercially viable as the internal rate of return (IRR) was very low.

The state government would bear half of the expenses of the 49-km long Muzaffar Nagar-Roorkee line, which would shorten the distance between the two cities by nearly one-and-a-half hour by skipping Saharanpur. In this regard, the government would pay the first installment of Rs 20 crore to the railways in a month.

The board also agreed to construct 15 road over bridges (ROBs) with the railways and the government sharing 50 percent of the total cost each. While two ROBs at Laksar and Motichoor are under construction, detailed project reports of the remaining 13 would be prepared shortly.

It was also decided to construct additional loop lines for the Kansro railway station, which falls under the Rajaji National Park for faster movements of trains.

State forest authorities were of the view that the loop lines should not obstruct free movement of the elephants in the Rajaji Park between the waiting trains and the signal cabins. The forest authorities also wanted the railways not to create obstructions in the forest areas, which are full of wildlife like elephants, leopards and tigers. The permission of Supreme Court will be required in this regard, they said.

This apart, the board also agreed to start work on the Dehra Dun-Kalsi line and also introduce new trains for tourism purpose. Towards this, a special weekend tourist package train from New Delhi for the famous Jim Corbett National Park in the Kumaon region would start soon. A new Shatabdi train is also in the offing between New Delhi and Kathgodam in this region.