Shashank Shekhar
Dhanbad ( Jharkhand) : Fearing accident due to raging underground fire threatening to spread over to Dhanbad—Chandrapura rail route through which several major trains including Rajdhanai and Shatabadi, the Prime minister office (PMO) has cleared laying of new diversion rail tracks and entire shifting programme at a cost of over Rs 4,000 crore. More than 200 km of new rail lines will be laid which will take about 7 years if the work starts immediately, railway source informed.
The decision for diversion of rail tracks and laying of new rail line was finally taken under leadership of Nripnedra Mishra, principal secretary, PMO, after several rounds of high level meetings held earlier between Railways, Coal India Limited, Director General of Mines Safety (DGMS)and Jharkhand state government failed to reach any conclusion after which the matter was referred to the PMO.
Divisional Railways Manager (DRM), Dhanbad,M K Akhauri said that the PMO has given green signal for laying of new track and as RITES has prepared the blue print of the project, the work on this project will very soon . “The laying of tracks will definitely help in catering better services to passengers and will also help in fast transportation of goods on goods trains,” said the DRM.
The problem in laying of new tracks cropped up after Railways asked BCCL ( Coal India Limited) to bear the expenses of laying of new rail lines as BCCL would be the bigger gainer while railways were being forced to shift the track due to underground fire which was refused by the CIL. Railway sources informed that on the advise of PMO, Rail India Technical and Economic service (RITES) has prepared its full report on shifting and laying of diversion rail routes which has been handed over to DGMS for its final approval which must reach PMO office before June 5, 2017, so that go ahead signal is given immediately.
As per information received from railways, RITES has given proposal to shift four rail routes on which presently several mail trains including Rajdhanai and Shatabadi run besides more than two dozen goods trains.
The final decision in this regard was taken under the chairmanship of Nripendra Mishra in New Delhi in which Coal secretary Sushil Kumar, Jharkhand chief secretary Rajbala Verma, DGMS P K Sarkar besides senior railway board members were present.
As per proposal 13 new rail lines to ferry coal and other goods will be laid while several new goods loading points will also be constructed. The major route Gomoh—Mahuda- Santhaldih on which even Rajdhani and Shatabadi run will pass through Telgaria—Chas- Benidih stations while a parallel rail line on Dhanbad –Chadrapura rail route will be laid through Bhuli—Matari up to Chandrapura.
As per railways sources, more than one dozen railway stations including Kusunda, Sijua, Katras, Angarpathra, Phularitand, Kharkhari,Baansjora, Bhaga, Bhaura, Loyabad besides several rail halts will cease to exist which fall in underground fire zone between Dhanbad and Chandrapura route.
Its may be mentioned here that the distance between Dhanbad –Chadrapura rail route is 34 km on which 58 mail, express and passenger trains move via Dhanbad—Kusunda, Bansuria –Bansjora—Sijua—Angarpathra—Katrasgarh—Tetulia—Sonardih—Tundu—Bodra-Phulwatand-Jamuni—Jaminiatand—Devnagar and Chandrapura.