The long held-up Indian Railways Dahod-Indore New Line project is set to get a boost. The Railway Board has de-frozen the construction of a 200.97 km new line between Dahod and Indore via Jhabua, Sardarpur, Dhar and Pithampur.
In a letter dated December 16, 2021, addressed to Western Railway (WR), the Board said that the zone should take up further execution of the new line project and plan for land acquisition and statutory clearances on priority.
WR on its part had requested asked the Railway Board’s nod in a letter dated June 29, 2021 to resume works on this new line project. The project work was frozen in May 2020 due to the Covid pandemic and the resulting financial crunch.
The new line is important as it covers those backward tribal districts of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh which have very little rail connectivity besides providing an alternate route between Vadodara /Dahod and Indore.
Dahod Indore New Line Project
Sanctioned at an original cost of Rs 1,640 crore, this project has already seen a time overrun of 36 months and a cost overrun of 14.21 per cent. The revised cost estimate has been pegged at Rs 1,873.1 crore with Rs 869.58 crore already spent on the project. The anticipated date of commissioning has now been revised to March 2025.
Section-wise Progress
Dahod -Katwara section (11.28 km)-
In this section, all civil works have been completed with permanent way material reaching the section. Track linking work was stopped in May 2020 as the project is kept on hold. Katwara to Jhabua Section (23.88 km): All works were short closed as the project was kept on hold.
Jhabua to Tirla section (93.9 km):
The section passes through Ghat section and comprises seven tunnels of length approximately 13.56 km besides three km long viaducts. Land acquisition demands of Forest land and private land of Jhabua district was deferred due to the project being kept on hold. All land acquisition papers were submitted to the collectors of Dhar and Jhabua. Government land has been awarded in Jhabua district. Possession of land was completed in the Tirla to Dhar section (10.76km) and the Dhar to Gunawad section (12.16 km). However, the tender for major bridge construction in the Dhar-Gunawad section was short closed.
Gunawad to Sagor section (15.24 km)
Possession of land was completed. However, the tender for formation construction was short closed.
Sagor to Pithampur section (09.12 km) and the Pithampur to Tihi section (8.29 km)
Earthwork, construction of major and minor bridges have been completed in the entire section except for the tunnel. Construction of a 3-km long tunnel was short closed.
Train operations between Indore and Tihi commenced as follows:-
Between Tihi and Rau section (9km), train operations commenced on March 11, 2017, while Indore-Rau (12 km) section opened for train operations on June 28, 2016.