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As part of the Centre’s infrastructure push, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved seven proposals by the ministry of railways to expand the rail network in various parts of the country, at an estimated cost of Rs 32,512 crore.
“The projects covering 35 districts in nine states — Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Odisha, Jharkhand and West Bengal — will increase the existing network of railways by 2,339 km. This will provide employment of 70.6 million man-days to the people of the states,” a statement by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) said.
According to the national transporter, these are essential routes for transportation of varied baskets of commodities such as foodgrains, fertilisers, coal, cement, fly-ash, iron and finished steel, clinkers, crude oil, limestone and edible oil, among others.
With the railways looking to increase freight revenues, the capacity augmentation works will result in additional freight traffic of 200 million tonnes per annum (MTPA).
The seven stretches feature several industrial and trade hotspots, such as 15,000 megawatt (Mw) powerhouses.
“The railways being an environment friendly and energy efficient mode of transportation, will help in achieving climate goals and reducing logistics cost of the country,” the CCEA said.
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The projects are a result of PM-Gati Shakti National Master Plan for Multi-modal connectivity, which have been possible through integrated planning and will provide seamless connectivity for movement of people, goods and services.
U-turn on freight corridor stretch
The projects include a quadrupling of lines between Sonnagar in Bihar to Andal in West Bengal.
Interestingly, before this development, the above mentioned stretch was an important part of the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC), which will now be built as regular, mixed-use rail tracks.
Business Standard had exclusively reported in April that the Centre had decided to end its pursuit for a private player to operate the Dankuni-Sonnagar stretch of the corridor and pump in Rs 12,000 crore from its own coffers for the stretch.
While the minister confirmed that there will be no PPP in this stretch, the Cabinet has gone one step forward and decided to get rid of the DFC status for the stretch. This decision was in line with the Prime Minister GatiShakti National Master Plan (NMP), according to Vaishnaw.
The national transporter expects its national freight share to increase to 40 per cent through this one stretch alone.
“A lot of area beyond Andal is already quadrupled, so the stretch will feed the eastern DFC,” railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said.
On whether the railways is now looking at only integrated rail networks instead of DFCs, Vaishnaw told Business Standard: “It is difficult to say at this point in time. The PM GatiShakti portal has all modes in it. We are aiming for a fully-optimised network, whether the mode be road, rail, or waterways… The aim is to fill the gap in the best way.”
