A new railway line between Indore in Madhya Pradesh and Manmad in Maharashtra will cut the distance between two cities by over 170 kilometers, apart from reducing logistics cost for several north Indian cargo centres and resulting in a cumulative economic benefits of Rs 15,000 crore.
An MoU for implementation of the 362-km railway line project was signed on Tuesday between the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT), Ministry of Shipping, Ministry of Railways and the state governments of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.
Containers and other rail traffic from Indore and other central Indian locations at present has to follow a circuitous route through Vadodara and Surat to reach Mumbai, Pune and ports like JNPT, travelling a distance of 815 km.
The new project will reduce the distance from Mumbai/Pune to key central India locations by 171 kilometers, resulting in lower logistics costs. Significantly, the new railway line will pass through the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor nodes of Igatpuri, Nashik and Sinnar; Pune and Khed; and Dhule and Nardana.
The MoU was signed in the presence of Shipping and Raod Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Phadnavis and Defence MoS Subhash Bhamre.
An official release said that the project is estimated to be completed "within six years" and will result in cumulative net economic benefits of Rs 15,000 crore in the first 10 years of operations.
The logistics advantages of the project include providing a shorter route for passenger as well as the freight traffic originating from/ terminating at or crossing through the region.
The project will reduce the logistics cost for the cargo centres located in northern India such as Lucknow, Agra, Gwalior and Kanpur belt as well as Indore-Dhule-Bhopal region to the gateway ports JNPT and Mumbai.
It will provide an alternate route to the existing central and western railway lines and will reduce congestion on the over utilized existing railway network.
--IANS
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