BHUBANESWAR: A major bottleneck concerning the long-pending Khurda-Balangir railway line is likely to be resolved soon as the Indian Railways has agreed to create additional structures on the Dasapalla-Sonepur stretch and sought the state government’s consent to share 50 per cent cost.
Sanctioned in 1994-95, the 301 km project was stuck due to many issues like court cases, land acquisition and forest clearance. After the forest clearances obtained for the 68 km Dasapalla-Purunakatak, it has been decided to create additional facilities for movement of wildlife as the 140 km Dasapalla-Sonepur stretch passes through hilly terrain and reserve forests.
Accordingly, the East Coast Railway (ECoR) has revised the estimate for the 140 km stretch to Rs 3,284.19 crore, excess by Rs 1,297.7 crore as compared to its earlier estimate. The excess estimate includes additional facilities like tunnels, bridges and animal over and under passes worth Rs 640.8 crore and the rest due to price escalation.
Dasapalla-Sonepur stretch was sanctioned at a cost of Rs 1,986 crore in June 2016. The state Forest department and the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change had recommended to create facilities to safeguard the forest envelope and protection of wild animals including elephants during the approval.
Source said, the ECoR has revised the estimate by incorporating several changes like construction of tunnels, viaducts (bridges), new bridge openings, elephant over and under passes in compliance with the forest and wildlife clearance.
As the Dasapalla-Purunakatak stretch passes through dense forest and Baisipalli wildlife sanctuary, it involves 597 hectare of forest land. Five tunnels with a combined length of 10.11 km will be dug at a cost of Rs 200 crore for smooth passage of animals while reducing the disturbance to the habitat as well as forest cover. Around one lakh trees will be saved due to the tunnels.
Additional three viaducts will be built as elephant passage and the length of a bridge viaduct between Buguda to Baniguchha will be increased from 1,588 metre to 4,768.4 metre as per the direction of Water Resources department to avoid reduction of pondage area and future siltation of Bhrutang irrigation project.
Besides, two major bridges will be added in Banigochha-Adenigarh section and a 380 metre elephant overpass will be built near Buguda elephant corridor to facilitate elephant movement as recommended by the Forest department, the sources added.
So far, 183 km (61 pc) out of 301 km has been commissioned - from Khurda Road to Dasapalla and from Balangir to Jharmunda. While another 43 km stretch from Jharmunda to Purunakatak will be commissioned shortly, work from Dasapalla to Purunakatak is in progress.