Indian Railways is making extensive progress in reforming the track infrastructure across the country. Keeping this in mind, the government has increased the budget allocation in FY 2022-23. The government has also increased the annual capital expenditure on Railway capacity expansion.

In this context, South Eastern Railways’ Kharagpur-Adityapur 3rd line project is in the final stretch. Nearly 82 percent of the 3rd line project has been completed so far. The total length of the project is 132 km whereas 90.583 km has been commissioned till date. 17 bridges out of a total of 19 major bridges have been completed. It is being expected that the new line project will get completed within this year. Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL), a category-I Mini-Ratna CPSE under the Ministry of Railways, is executing the project.

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The trains originating from South Eastern Railway (SER) connect Maharashtra, Gujarat, and other states of Western India.

The construction of the 3rd line was sanctioned in 2015-16 with an estimated cost of Rs 1,312 crores. The project covers 55 km in the State of West Bengal and 77 km in the State of Jharkhand.

Significance

The Kharagpur-Adityapur section is an extremely busy route with an oversaturated capacity. Hence, it became essential for the Railways for seamless train movement. This newly built line forms a part of the Howrah – Mumbai Trunk route. On completion, the new line will ease the traffic bottlenecks and will enhance the capacity. It will generate more revenues to the Indian Railways. 

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Other new line projects of South Eastern Railway

Kalaikunda-Jhargram Section

The 3rd line work of the 30 km long Kalaikunda-Jhargram Section has been completed. An amount of Rs 255 crores has been allotted for the project in the Union Budget 2021-22.

Rourkela-Jharsuguda section

The 3rd line work of 101 km long Rourkela-Jharsuguda section is in progress. The project was sanctioned in FY 2015-16 with an estimated cost of Rs 1,312.96 crores.