Railway launches ₹8,600 cr Manmad-Indore rail line

The Indian Railways is all set to lay the foundation stone for an ambitious Manmad-Indore railway line entailing an investment of ₹8,600 crore. The detailed project report has been prepared and the Union cabinet is expected to clear the project shortly and after that the PM lays the foundation stone soon, said sources elaborating that private entities have shown interest in the project and they are likely to have 15% stake in the project, apart from the other investors like JNPT, the Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh governments are also interested in the project. The mega project involved laying about 362-km of railway tracks between Manmad in Nashik district and Indore in Madhya Pradesh and crisscrossing through Dhule, Igatpuri, Nashik and Sinnar, Pune, and Khed in Maharashtra. Containers and other rail traffic from Indore and other central Indian locations at present have to follow a circuitous route through Vadodara and Surat to reach Mumbai, Pune and ports like JNPT travelling a distance of 815-km and the new line will reduce the distance from Mumbai-Pune to key central India locations by 171 km, resulting in lower costs for logistics.