SECR unveils 228-km long Bilaspur-Nagpur new rail line

South East Central Railway (SECR) has planned to build a third rail line between Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh and Nagpur in Maharashtra. With the projection of growth in freight in time to come, the railways is keen on the expansion and has now come up with new formula wherein Zone has shortened the project to limit it between Rajnandgaon to Kalumna, a distance of 228 km, in the first phase. Bilaspur Zone is the single largest transporter of coal for Indian Railways and nearly 90 per cent of traffic originates from Bilaspur and moves towards South and Western India where there is a concentration of thermal power plants. The splitting of project stems from an earlier lack of response to tenders floated for a 412 km turnkey project on multiple occasions. Within the first phase, a zone is going of the topographical survey between Dongargarh to BorTalao, a section of 17 km, for an assessment about the requirement of tunnels and other railway structures that would be required. The section is chosen as it consists of a ghat section plus a water body, two challenges that would be needed to keep in mind while planning for the third track. Now with the focused approach, the railway officials believe by lowering the project value with an estimated completion time of five years. But later on, zone officials decided to go straight from Nagpur to Bilaspur for a seamless movement of trains since beyond Bilaspur already fourth line is being built up to Jharsugda thereby covering the entire coal belt on Eastern corridor. The proposed line would cover four districts in Chhattisgarh and three in Maharashtra.