SCR gets ₹14,232 crore; to spend ₹4,089 crore on doubling, new lines this year
The Hindu
South Central Railway allocated ₹14,232 crore for various railway projects, including new lines, doubling works, and passenger amenities.
South Central Railway (SCR) has been allocated ₹14,232 crore and will be spending ₹1,184 crore for the proposed new railway lines, ₹2,905 crore for doubling works, ₹1,530 for track renewals, ₹1,144 crore for road over and under bridges and about ₹789 crore for passenger amenities in this year’s allocation as per the ‘pink’ book placed in Parliament on Thursday.
For the twin cities, the projects of Cherlapally fourth terminal which is likely to be completed by March has been allocated ₹46 crore, Kazipet wagon repair workshop ₹150 crore, MMTS phase two got another ₹50 crore and extension up to Yadadri ₹10 crore.
Telangana’s coveted railway line from Manoharabad to Kothapalli of 148 km connecting Gajwel, Sircilla and Vemulawada has received ₹350 crore while the 309 km Nadikudi-Srikalahasti line in Andhra Pradesh has received ₹450 crore. The Kotipally-Narsapur line of 57 km got ₹300 crore.
Existing tripling and doubling works got a boost with ₹310 crore allocated for 219 km of Kazipet-Vijayawada, ₹500 crore for 287 km Vijaywada-Gudur, ₹300 crore for 201 km Kazipet-Balharshah. The long pending 248 km Guntur-Bibinagar doubling work has received ₹200 crore and this will provide an alternate route to the saturated Kazipet-Khammam connecting Nalgonda, Miryalguda and Vishnupuram.
Senior railway officials disclosed that it will give a fillip to freight trains as lot of cement plants are located on the route apart from an upcoming thermal plant. More passenger trains too can be run once the doubling work is done. About ₹535 crore has been allocated for workshops and production units, ₹302 crore for signal and telecom and ₹32 crore for road safety works.
Significantly, ‘Kavach’ – the indigenously designed train collision prevention device — implementation has received just ₹10.5 crore. Few other projects which received meagre resources perhaps to keep them ‘alive’ rather than being considered shelved are:
₹1000 each to 177.49 km Peddapalli-Karimnagar-Nizamabad, 335 km Duvvada-Vijayawada, 92 km of proposed new line between Macherla-Nalgonda, 21 km Kakinada-Pitapuram, 106 km Vijaywada-Guntur via Amaravati, etc. ₹10 lakh has been allocated for 255 km Kapada-Bengluru, 151 km Bhadrachalam-Kovvur, 125 km Kondapalli-Kothagudem and ₹5 crore for 200 km Manuguru-Ramagundam.
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