BHUBANESWAR: Navratna central public sector enterprise Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL) is executing three railway works, including the connectivity from Talcher Road to Kamalang at a cost of Rs 80 crore and Dhanmandal-Chandikhole line at Rs 150 crore apart from the connectivity to the siding of Tata Steel plant at Kalinganagar with Duburi at Rs 500 crore.
Principal executive director (east and BD-domestic) of RVNL Saroj Kanta Patra said the 6 km Talcher-Kamalang C-curve will add to the already operational 104 km Angul-Sukinda railway corridor, which was taken up in SPV mode without investment from railways.
The project is expected to be completed by December this year. Once completed, it will facilitate faster evacuation of coal from Talcher and the freight loading in the corridor will go up to 100 million tonne, he said.
Speaking to TNIE, Patra said apart from three projects, two more railway works are also underway. The RVNL, which has completed 1,100 km of railway lines worth Rs 18,000 crore in Odisha, has been assigned 27 major bridges at around Rs 404 crore on Koraput-Singapur Road doubling project and the third and fourth lines of Jarapada-Talcher project (excluding yard) and Angul-Balram doubling including yards of MCRL inner corridor at Rs 287 crore, he said.
“We are also executing NHAI works which included the rehabilitation and upgradation of Chandikhole-Paradip section from four to eight lanes (package-4) on hybrid annuity mode at Rs 808 crore,” he said.
RVNL has its presence in 25 states in the country and already opened its branch offices in South Africa, Oman, Abu Dhabi, Uzbekistan and Maldives to create a more robust enterprise and leverage its expertise in managing large infrastructure projects. It has diversified its portfolio beyond traditional railways to telecom, solar energy, irrigation, road projects and ports and its order book stood at over RS 95,000 crore across India and abroad, Patra said.
Works worth Rs 43,000 crore have been assigned by Indian Railways, while RVNL has bagged Rs 52,000 crore of projects on competitive bidding basis. “We are expanding our portfolio based on expertise and aspiring to become a Maharatna company in next few years,” he said.
“RVNL is now bidding in the open market and pursuing international projects through JVs/MoUs to augment its operations. The company has taken projects worth `2,000 crore in Maldives, South Africa, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and proposes to take up more projects overseas as well,” he said.