CABINET APPROVES 3RD LINE BETWEEN KHURDA ROAD-VIZANAGARAM
Dr.Badal Tah,Odishabarta
Rayagada, August 18: The Union Cabinet has approved for seven railway projects of worth Rs 32,512 Crores in different part of the country of which construction of 3rd line between Nergundi-Barang & Khurda Road–Vizianagaram are included. Divisional Railway Manager(DRM) Shri Saurabh Prasad explained salient features of the project during a recent press meet.
DRM mentioned that Section is oversaturated with Line capacity utilisation of 137% in some sections and thus becoming a bottleneck for train operations. Hence this line will benefit in many ways.
The total length of the project is 385 Km. In Odisha, it is184 Km covering Bhadrak, Jajpur, Khordha, Cuttack & Ganjam districts. In Andhra Pradesh it is 201 Km covering
Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam district. The estimated Cost is Rs.5,618 Cr where 6 Important bridges to be constructed that are : Major bridges on river: Birupa (488M), Mahanadi (2,096M), Kathajodi (822M), Rusikulya (457M), Bansadhara (410M), Kuakhai (822M) & 86 Major Bridges and 847 number of Minor Bridges to be constructed.
Further DRM elaborated how the industries would be benefited in this region. In Odisha benefits will be accrued like Domestic coal to South India through all rail route from Talcher, Coal from Paradeep and Gopalpur ports to steel plants, Raw material (clinker, pet coke etc) for cement plants from Paradeep port, export of steel from various steel plants, Faster movement of iron ore from mines in Keonjhar district to various ports.
In Andhra Pradesh, seamless transportation of coal from Vishakhapatnam and Gangavaram ports to steel plants in Odisha will be done. Railways can run more train services in Odisha/ Andhra Pradesh routes & Special trains can be run as per the demand and convenience. With this addition line, apart from decongestion of the traffic, additional goods traffic of 78.79 MTPA consisting of, coal, cement, iron ore, steel, fertilizer, oil, etc. are anticipated on the proposed section.
