Maharashtra to get 11 new railway lines

Commuters board a crowded local train at Dadar railway station terminus on Thursday as Union railway minister Suresh Prabhu presented the railway budget in Parliament. (Photo: Shripad Naik)

Maharashtra will get 11 new railway lines for decongesting the state at a total cost of Rs 28,143 crore. These include the much needed Pune-Nashik, Vaibhavwadi-Kolhapur, Indore-Manmad and Manmad-Jalgaon lines, among others. Further, surveys for the new lines have been proposed amounting to Rs 1.66 crore.

The total budget of Rs 4,767 crore is a 10 per cent increase as compared to last year’s budget of Rs 4,458 crore.

Railway officials said that this marks a change as Mumbai eats into the state pie.

“The proposed projects mean a lot in rural Maharashtra, which is heavily reliant on state transport buses as well. By increasing capacity and new lines, we hope that we will be able to share the burden,” said an official.

At Rs 9,968 crore, the biggest chunk has been given to Indore-Manmad via Malegaon, followed by the Latur-Nanded via Loha and Ahmednagar line allocation of Rs 3,100 crore, Vaibhavwadi-Kolhapur with Rs 2,750 crore, and Pune-Nashik with Rs 2,425 crore. As a result, a total of 1,694 km of track has been proposed.

A lease of life along with surveys has been declared for networks, including Pachora and Jamner and extension to Malkapur with a budget allocation of Rs 41 lakh and Shrirampur-Newasa-Shevgaon-Georai-Parali with Rs 35 lakh. The survey is projected to cover 933 km of railway track.

The budget document also notes that a go ahead has been given to the Mumbai Urban Transport Project III and platforms in Mumbai are to be raised in the next financial year.