Tori-Shivpur rail section in J'khand to be completed by May: Sinha

Union Minister Manoj Sinha today inaugurated a 19.3-km railway line between Tori and Balumath in Jharkhand, and said it would facilitate faster transportation of coal from mines to power plants.
The Tori-Balumath stretch is part of the 44-km Tori-Shivpuri railway section, which, the Minister of State for Railways said, would be completed by May.
It will facilitate coal transportation from Central Coalfields Limited's open cast mines Amrapali and Magadh in Jharkhand's Latehar and Chatra districts respectively.
There are three stations, five major bridges, seven road over-bridges and 39 minor bridges between Tori and Balumath.
"The section passes through hilly terrain affected by Maoist and extremists activities. During execution of the project, problems were faced. There was firing at work sites and kidnapping of railway staff and officers by Maoist and extremists," Sinha said.

He inaugurated the Tori-Balumath railway line through video-conferencing from Delhi.

The minister said with the help of the Jharkhand government, elaborate security arrangements were made during the construction of the line.
"Police camps were set up at sites of the project to ensure round-the-clock work. I thank all the railway staffers for their hard work," he said.
The railways said that as per initial estimate, Coal India Limited (CIL) proposed to transport a total of 80 rakes of coal daily from its various blocks.
Two sidings are being developed by CIL to connect Amrapali and Magadh coal mines to the rail network. It is expected that 15 rakes of coal will be generated from each of the coal mines, it said.

The first phase of the section between Tori and Balumath has been completed.
"Work on the remaining part is in advance stage and likely to be completed by May 2018," he said.
The Tori-Balumath section has been completed with an expenditure of about Rs 1,063 crore, the railways said. The revised sanctioned cost of this project is Rs 1,589 crore.
The Tori-Shivpur rail line project is funded by Central Coalfields Limited (CCL) -- a coal producing subsidiary of Coal India Limited (CIL).
The commissioning of Tori-Balumath rail line and Balumath-CCL Siding will help to evacuate five to six rakes of coal everyday in first phase which will result in annual offtake of 6-7 million tonne (MT). On completion of the complete stretch, Tori-Shivpur- Kathotia rail line, around 100 MT of coal will be evacuated annually from North Karanpura Coalfield of Jharkhand, the ministry said in a release.