Visakhapatnam: The Union Cabinet has approved seven railway projects worth '32,512 crore in different parts of the country on Wednesday.
The construction of a third line between Nergundi and Barang, and Khurda Road and Vizianagaram has been given the nod.
Divisional railway manager Saurabh Prasad said, “DRM mentioned that Section is over-saturated with line capacity utilisation of 137 per cent in some sections and is thus becoming a bottleneck for train operations.”
The total length of the project is 385km. In Odisha, it would stretch 184km and the cities covered are Bhadrak, Jajpur, Khordha, Cuttack and Ganjam. In Andhra Pradesh, it would cover 201km through Srikakulam, Vizianagaram and Visakhapatnam.
The estimated cost of the project is 5,618 crore
The railway official elaborated on how the industries in this region will be benefited. “ In Odisha, domestic coal can be taken and reached to south India through all rail routes from Talcher as also the imported coal from Paradeep and Gopalpur ports to the steel plants.
Raw material for cement plants from Paradeep port can be transported easily with the new line becoming functional. It will benefit the nation in export of steel from various steel plants, faster movement of iron ore from mines in Keonjhar district to various ports etc.
In Andhra Pradesh, seamless transportation of coal from Visakhapatnam and Gangavaram ports to steel plants in Odisha can be done easily.
The benefits to passengers are: the railways can run more train services in Odisha and AP routes and special trains can be run as per demand.
With this addition line, apart from decongestion of the traffic, additional goods traffic of 78.79 MTPA is anticipated.
