Cabinet clears four rail projects worth Rs 9,450 crore adding 410 km of track

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has approved four railway multitracking projects worth around Rs 9,450 crore, adding approximately 410 km of new track across four states.

The projects cover eight districts spread across West Bengal, Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, and are targeted for completion between 2030 and 2031.

The largest of the four is a 173-km fourth line between Kharagpur and Bhadrak via Ranital, passing through West Bengal and Odisha to add capacity to a heavily used eastern railway corridor.

A separate 75-km fourth line has been approved between Bhadrak and Haridaspur in Odisha, aimed at easing congestion on another busy section of the state’s railway network.

A third project covers a 90-km stretch between Gummidipundi and Gudur across parts of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, while the fourth adds a third and fourth line across 72 km between Cuttack and Paradeep in Odisha.

The government said the combined multitracking projects are expected to improve connectivity to around 6,448 villages with a combined population of roughly 60 lakh people.

Officials said the additional track capacity would help ease congestion on some of the country’s busiest passenger and freight corridors, reducing delays for both categories of traffic.

The projects form part of a broader push by the Railways Ministry to expand multitracking across high-density corridors, a strategy officials say delivers faster capacity gains than building entirely new lines.

The Cabinet has approved several similar multitracking packages in recent months, including an earlier Rs 18,658 crore package covering Maharashtra, Odisha and Chhattisgarh, and a separate Rs 11,169 crore package spanning six states.

Multitracking projects generally take less time to complete than new greenfield railway lines, since they largely follow existing alignments and require comparatively less land acquisition.

The eastern and southern rail corridors covered by the latest approval handle a mix of passenger and freight traffic, including coal and mineral movement from the Odisha coalfields toward port and industrial destinations.

Photo by Indrajit Das, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0