Work on the Kharagpur-Adityapur 3rd Line Project (132 km), part of the Howrah-Mumbai Trunk Route has achieved 82% completion. With the commissioning of the Chakulia-Ghatsila section (30.38 km), a total of 90.583 km of this line has been commissioned, informed the Ministry of Railways, on Monday.
Works completed on Kharagpur-Adityapur 3rd Line Project:
- Major Bridges- 17/19
- Track Linking- 92.6 km/132 km
- Station Buildings- 8/13 completed & 95% progress on 4
About the Kharagpur-Adityapur 3rd Line Project
The project covers 55 km in the state of West Bengal and, in Jharkhand, it covers 77 Km. At an estimated cost of Rs 1312 crores, the project was sanctioned in the year 2015-16. This section is extremely busy for moving raw materials and finished products of the core sector, especially steel plants as well as power plants on Howrah-Mumbai Trunk Route.
This 3rd line project will not only increase the section capacity but will also help to accelerate the mobility of passenger and freight trains to establish a seamless operation in the section which is at a saturated point at present. In other words, this line will ease traffic bottlenecks on the route and cater to future traffic growth.
In the General Budget (2021-22), Rs. 225 crores has been allotted for this project.
About Howrah-Mumbai Trunk Route
In India, the Howrah–Nagpur–Mumbai line (also known as Mumbai–Kolkata line) is a railway line connecting Kolkata and Mumbai via Nagpur. It is a 1,968-kilometre-long railway line. It was opened to traffic in 1900.
The rail line cuts across the central parts of India in an east–west direction. It traverses the plains of lower West Bengal, the southern part of the Chota Nagpur Plateau, the Deccan Plateau, the Western Ghats, and finally the Western Coastal Plains.