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The Union Cabinet on Tuesday approved four projects worth ₹24,634 crore to decongest key trunk routes of the railway network. This would be done by adding track capacity across Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, and Chhattisgarh.
The projects include Wardha-Bhusawal (3rd and 4th line in Maharashtra), Gondia-Dongargarh (4th line in Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh), Vadodara-Ratlam (3rd and 4th line in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh), and Itarsi-Bhopal-Bina (4th line in Madhya Pradesh).
Seven corridors on the national railway network account for 41 per cent of the movement, including Delhi-Howrah, Kolkata-Chennai, Chennai-Mumbai, Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi-Chennai, Mumbai-Kolkata, and Delhi-Guwahati.
“There have been many projects designed to connect, strengthen, and expand these corridors. With these projects, there is an ongoing effort to have a minimum of four lines on these key corridors, and even six lines if needed,” railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said in a briefing.
These projects are estimated to save ₹3,104 crore in logistics cost when completed.
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The four projects covering 18 districts will increase the existing network of Indian Railways by 894 kilometres and enhance connectivity to 3,633 villages, serving 8.6 million people.
The 314-kilometre Wardha-Bhusawal project is part of the initiative to quadruple the Mumbai–Howrah high-density route. It has a high demand for passenger and freight trains and traverses through Jalgaon, Buldhana, Akola, Amaravati, and Wardha.
The estimated cost of the project is ₹9,197 crore with a completion timeline of five years.
It will support key economic nodes, including JNPA, Kandla Port, Mundra Port, coal and iron ore mines, and major cement, steel, and power plants.
The ₹2,223-crore Gondia-Dongargarh project will facilitate movement of coal from mines located in Raigarh Mand, Talcher, Korba, and IB Valley to various thermal power plants.
The Vadodara-Ratlam project is aimed at expanding the Delhi-Mumbai corridor. The ₹8,885-crore project will bring 17 million tonnes of traffic to the railways, connecting key industrial nodes and logistics hubs.
The Itarsi-Bhopal-Bina line will address capacity constraints and ease passenger movement between Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad.
The capacity augmentation works are expected to result in additional freight traffic of 78 million tonnes per annum.
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