New rail route between Asansol and Warangal

Hyderabad: Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister of Railways, Communications & IT, Information & Broadcasting stated that Pandurangapuram- Bhadrachalam-Malkangiri new railway line project will be taken up with high priority to provide a new rail route through tribal belt and will act as alternate rail route between Asansol and Warangal.

The project includes connectivity between Junagarh-Nabarangpur-Jeypore-Malkangiri-Bhadrachalam-Pandurangapuram.

The new rail line project between Junagarh-Nabarangpur, Malkangiri-Bhadrachalam-Pandurangapuram at a length of 290 route km is being taken up with an expenditure of Rs 7383 crore.

He spoke with the media persons at New Delhi and Virtually with Hyderabad media today Arun Kumar Jain, General Manager, South Central Railway along with senior officials participated in the virtual press conference at Rail Nilayam, Secunderabad.

He also stated that Andhra Pradesh and Telangana States will immensely benefit by this project. It will be an additional rail corridor to northern and eastern India, which will help thermal power plants in southern India to get coal faster, Aluminum and iron ore industries to benefit from better connectivity.

The new line will also provide wider market to agro products in Andhra and Telangana. This will provide additional rail route to coastal area of existing Vijayawada-Visakhapatnam- Bhubaneshwar-kolkata to New route Warangal – Bhadrachalam – Malkangiri – Jaypore – Titlagarh.

This line will provide connectivity to tribal and aspirational districts of Kalahandi, Nabarangpur, Koraput, Rayagada, Malkangiri districts were affected by Left Wing Extremism in the past.

Now economic activities have started and peace is being restored in these districts. This new line corridor will lead to socio-economic development of the above districts of Odisha and East Godavari (Andhra Pradesh) & Bhadadri Kothagudem (Telangana). This corridor will provide shorter connectivity to Power Plants situated in central & south India from Mahanadi coal field areas.

Ashwini Vaishnaw informed that the new railway line will serve as a Disaster Management Back-up Route. This new line will provide connectivity to various districts of Odisha even during Cyclones if the connectivity of the existing routes gets affected in the Howrah-Vijayawada coastal route.

It will provide easy accessibility of food grains, fertilizers, agricultural products and cement to this region. Commencement of the new line will reduce the distance from Southern Odisha and Bastar region to South India by 124 km and will also act as a alternate route bypassing busy corridors like Rajahmundry & Visakhapatnam.

This project will generate one crore man days employment and reduce the carbon foot prints around 267 crore kg which is equivalent to plantation of three crore 80 lakh trees.