 "A worker unloads coal from a goods train at a railway yard in Chandigarh (Pic: Reuters)")
The Union cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi today approved an investment of Rs 8,349 crore for laying down multiple freight-specific rail lines in Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh.
The rail projects, including building new lines and doubling of existing tracks, will be commissioned over seven years spanning the 12th and the 13th Plan period. “The projects will greatly ease the ever-increasing freight traffic between these sections, thereby increasing the revenue of railways,” an official statement said.
After the cabinet meeting, power, coal and renewable energy minister Piyush Goyal told mediapersons that the entire investment of over Rs 8,000 crore in the projects will be done by the central government. The lines will be laid to cover a distance of over 633 kilometres across Angul, Dhenkanal, Cuttack, Koraput and Rayagada districts in Odisha, Bastar in Chhattisgarh and Vizianagaram and Vishakhapatnam districts in Andhra Pradesh.
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In order to boost roads and highway infrastructure, the cabinet also approved a new mechanism to segregate construction cost from cost for land acquisition and pre-construction activities for approval of national highway projects.
All highway projects with construction cost less than Rs 1,000 crore will be approved by the secretary and the ministry of road transport and highways while projects with construction cost above Rs 1,000 crore will be approved by the economic affairs secretary and the Union cabinet.
