Cabinet clears doubling of two rail lines

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on Tuesday approved two important railway projects -- doubling of the Barabanki-Akbarpur (Uttar Pradesh) and Daund-Manmad (Maharashtra) railway lines.

The 161 km Barabanki-Akbarpur railway line is expected to be completed by 2021-22 at the cost of Rs 1,310.23 crore while a time frame of five years has been set for the completion of the 247.5 km Daund-Manmad railway line at Rs 2,330.51 crore.

Announcing the decision, Railways Minister Piyush Goyal said that the doubling of lines will ease the ever increasing passenger and freight traffic on both the routes, thereby increasing the revenue of Railways.

"Besides passengers, industries in and around the Barabanki-Akbarpur and Daund-Manmad routes will have additional transport capacity to meet their requirements," said Goyal.

He added that the districts of Barabanki and Faizabad in Uttar Pradesh, and Pune, Ahmednagar and Nashik in Maharashtra will benefit from the projects.

Stating that electrification will also be done along the Daund-Manmad line, Goyal said the rail project will prove to be a boon for Shirdi and Shingnapur areas.

"This will make the route easier for the people who want to go there," he said, adding that the project will be completed "in four to four and a half years."

Stressing that the project will create huge employment opportunities, he said: "A total of five foot over bridges and 20 foot under bridges will be constructed as part of the project."

The investment for rail projects in the last three years has almost more than doubled, said the Minister and called it historic.

"From 2009 to 2014 only Rs 10,000 to 12,000 was being invested every financial year for Railway projects."

"However, from 2014 onwards the investment has just more than doubled. In 2015-16 Rs 29,422 crore was invested. In 2016-17 Rs 30,556 crore was invested and for the financial year 2017-18 Rs 33,914 crore has been invested which is more than double to the earlier investments," said Goyal.

--IANS

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