Thane, Feb 18 (Agency) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said that from the last seven years, the NDA government has been promoting several reforms in the Railways sector. “Infrastructure projects in the past ran for years because of a lack of coordination from planning to execution, but since this government came into power, several developed works have been expedited at rapid pace,” the Prime Minister said while inaugurating the two additional railways line from Thane to Diva in Maharashtra through virtual mode. The Prime Minister also flagged off two sub-urban services during the event and said, “These two lines will bring change in the lives of local people and provide them with ease of living”.
These two additional railway lines connecting Thane and Diva have been built at a cost of around Rs 620 crore and commissioned on February 8, 2022. This project will facilitate of 36 additional sub-urban services and result in increased passengers capacity on Central railways. This 19-km track (Up and Down) features 1.4 km long rail flyover, three major bridges, 21 minor bridges, six platforms and eight footover bridge. Recounting the benefits of this project, the Prime Minister said that these railway lines will remove the interference of long distance train’s traffic with suburban train’s traffic in Mumbai and also enable the introduction of 36 new suburban trains in the city. In an apparent attack on the UPA government, Modi said, “The project was launched in 2007 and it would have been completed in 2015, but it languished for various reasons. However, our government completed it on priority basis for the benefit of people of Maharashtra”.
The Prime Minister said the development of Metro has also been initiated in Mumbai in the past seven years and our focus is to bring world class railway connectivity to Mumbai, which will be at par with the 21st century infrastructure goals. Talking about the infrastructure requirements for Mumbai Suburban trains, he said its capacity can be increased by nearly 400 km. “We are planning to modernise 19 stations and implementation of the CBDC system,” he added. Over the regional connectivity, he said the Ahmedabad Mumbai High Speed Rail is the need for Mumbai and it will strengthen Mumbai’s potential and the state capital’s identity as the city of dreams. Talking about the Gatishakti master plan, he said, “It is not possible to build the infrastructure of 21st century India with this approach, that’s why we have made the PM Gatishakti National Masterplan. “During the Covid-19 pandemic itself, we have electrified over 8000 railway lines, introduced over 4500 new lines and helped in transporting Agriculture goods between states with the help of Kisan Rails” he said. Modi also said that over 6,000 railway stations have been connected with Wi Fi and Vande Bharat trains are improving India’s rail transit.
“In the next few years, 400 new Vande Bharat trains will be started,” he added. Addressing the locals before the inauguration of the project, Union Railways Minister Ashwin Vaishnaw said these new lines will benefit one lakh people every day and 3.5 crore people in a year. He also hailed the Prime Minister for enormous allocation of budgetry support for the railways and said due his vision for the infrastructure development of railways will help in reducing the logistic cost in the country. He said in this year budget the centre has allocated 11930 cr budgetry support of railways’ infrastructure for the Maharashtra. There are six tracks between Kurla to Thane and Diva to Kalyan. The missing link in the 5th and 6th lines between Thane and Diva has now been commissioned and this will result in the effective utilisation of lines between Kurla/Lokmanya Tilak Terminus and Kalyan station. The project has been sanctioned under the Mumbai Urban Transport Project-II, with equal cost sharing between the Railways Ministry and the government of Maharashtra.