Doubling of Ranchi (Hatia)-Bondamunda Railway line

No: --- Dated: Mar, 23 2016

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has given its approval for doubling of the Ranchi (Hatia) Railway line of 158.5 km with a completion cost of Rs.1921.94 crore. The project is likely to be completed in the next six years during the 12th and 13th Plan period. 

Doubling of this line will augment the line capacity of the section and serve freight traffic needs of the upcoming Super Thermal Power Plant at Barch and other Thermal Power Plants like Katni and Baruni. The construction of double line will ease traffic bottlenecks. 

Ranchi, Gumla and Simdega districts of Jharkhand and Sundargarh district of Odisha will be benefited through this project. 

With the expansion of the Bokaro Steel Plant and Rourkela Steel Plant, the utilization of the existing line capacity will be to the tune of 226% and 171% respectively.The additional volume of raw materials and finished steel that will move over theproject section will be at the level of 10 MTPA by 2025-26. 

Background: 

Proposed Ranchi (Hatia)-Bondamunda line is a single line section which is being used for goods traffic to and fromBokaro Steel Plant and Rourkela Steel Plant and an average of 22 trains each way per day run over these sections. This indicates that the line is over saturated with utilization to the tune of an average of 160% resulting in detention of trains and consequential loss of revenue. Hence to cope up with the existing as well as additional traffic, doubling of the whole section is required or else the Railways will face capacity crunch in this already saturated section.