Cabinet nod for Rs 11,944 crore road and railway projects

The union cabinet approved road and railway infrastructure projects worth Rs 11,944 crore Tuesday. These include development of 80.45 km long, four-lane corridor in Madhya Pradesh (MP) at an investment of Rs 3839.42 crore. It also gave a go ahead to 11-km long elevated road project on the Jewar airport-Faridabad section which will cost Rs Rs 689.24 crore, taking up the total cost of the project to Rs 3630.77 crore.

Railway projects getting the cabinet nod were the fourth line of Sainthia - Pakur, and Santragachi - Kharagpur sections. These two cover five districts across West Bengal and Jharkhand, increasing the existing network of Indian Railways by about 192 kilometres.

An official statement said the approved railway projects are essential routes for transportation of commodities such as coal, stone, dolomite, cement, slag, gypsum, iron and steel, foodgrains, petroleum products, and containers, among others.


The capacity augmentation will result in 31 million tonnes per annum additional freight traffic.

Greenfield road connectivity between DND-Ballabhgarh Bypass and Jewar International Airport, links it to the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway, another statement said. The Haryana government has agreed to bear Rs 450 crore of the additional cost for the elevated corridor which is seen as a critical segment.

The 80-km long corridor in MP, to be developed on NH-752 D, will extend from Badnawar to Timarwani and will provide connectivity from Ujjain to Timrawani interchange at Delhi Mumbai Expressway (DME). This proposed four-lane corridor will be built on hybrid annuity mode (HAM) and will have a concession period of 17 years which includes two years of construction period.

The MP road project will cut travel time by approximately an hour, the statement said, adding it will contribute to the overall economic development of Dhar and Jhabua districts in the state.