Rs 5,618 crore worth Vizianagaram-Khurda Road third line approved

Union Cabinet has approved for seven railway projects of worth Rs 32,512 crores in different parts of the country

Visakhapatnam: The Union Cabinet has approved for seven railway projects of worth Rs 32,512 crores in different parts of the country of which the construction of the third line between Nergundi – Barang and Khurda Road – Vizianagaram in Waltair Division, according to Divisional Railway Manager Saurabh Prasad.

Talking to media persons here on Wednesday, he said that the section is oversaturated with Line capacity utilisation of 137 per cent in some sections and became a bottleneck for train operations, and the third would benefit in many ways.

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The estimated cost of the project is Rs 5,618 crore and the length of the third line in Odisha would be 184 km while the total length of the project is 385 km. Bhadrak, Jajpur, Khordha, Cuttack, Ganjam would be covered in Odisha while in Andhra Pradesh, Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam over an extent of 201 km, he said.

As many as six important bridges would be constructed and these include on river Birup (488M), Mahanadi (2,096M), Kothjori (822M), Rusikulya (457M), Bansadhara (410M), Kuakhai (822M), besides 86 Major Bridges and 847 number of Minor Bridge.

Saurabh Prasad also said that the industries in the region would be benefited a great deal. In Odisha, 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, and faster movement of iron ore from mines in Keonjhar district to various ports would be facilitated.

As for Andhra Pradesh, he stated that seamless transportation of Coal from Vishakhapatnam and Gangavaram ports to steel plants in Odisha could be done.

Also, the benefits to passengers include more train services in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh routes while special trains could be run as per the demand and convenience, he pointed out.

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. were expected from the proposed section, he said.