By IANS,
Mumbai: Mamata Banerjee’s railway budget for 2010-11 has provided several rail and related infrastructure projects for Maharashtra.
These include three new line surveys which will be commissioned to examine the feasibility of providing rail connections between: Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus-Churchgate in Mumbai; Sawantwadi (Konkan Maharashtra) to Belgaum (Karnataka border); and Nashik Road-Dahanu Road.
A new railway line is under contruction connecting the section of Lonad-Phalton on the Baramati-Lonad route in western Maharashtra.
Similarly, the ongoing work to convert the metre-guage Pandharpur-Miraj section of the Miraj-Latur route is nearing completion.
Electrification will be taken up this year (2010-11) on the Gondia-Ballarshah route via Naghbir in the Vidarbha region of eastern Maharashtra; and the route connecting Manmad with Daund in northern Maharashtra.
Six railway stations in the state have been earmarked for upgradation as ‘Adarsh Stations’ (Ideal Stations) – Miraj, Nashik Road, Parbhani, Purna, Sangli and Solapur. These stations, out of 94 all over India, will focus on enhanced facilities, infrastructure, ambience and aesthetics.
Multi-functional complexes will be constructed in different parts of Maharashtra, including at Vasai Road, Aurangabad, Gondia, Miraj, Shegaon and Wardha. These stations form part of the total 93 in the country for this project.
Five places in the state will have multi-speciality hospitals – Bhusawal, Chalisgaon, Miraj, Purna and Wardha.
Besides, general speciality hospitals will come up at 10 locations – Aurangabad, Ballarshah, Chandrapur, Daund, Jalna, Kurduwadi, Lonavala, Miraj, Purna and Solapur.
Besides two in Mumbai, as many as 33 railway outpatient departments and diagnostic centres will also come up all over the state at: Ahmednagar, Akola, Aurangabad, Bhusaval, Chalisgaon, Chandrapur, Daund, Deolali, Jalna, Kolhapur, Kopargaon, Kurduwadi, Lonavala, Malkapur, Manmad, Miraj, Matheran, Nanded, Nashik, Pachora, Parli-Vaijnath, Purna, Sangli, Sewagram, Shegaon, Shirdi, Solapur, Srirampur, Thane and Wardha.
Nashik will be one of the six towns around the country where a new bottling plant for supplying cheap, clean drinking water on trains will be coming up.
Mamata has proposed setting up a railway wagons repair workshop for undertaking periodic overhaul of coaches at Badnera in Amravati district in east Maharashtra’s backward Vidarbha region, which would handle the maintenance of the large fleet of wagons that will be acquired in the future.
The heart of the state’s wine country, Nashik is among the six locations all over India, identified for initiating the Kisan Vision Project. The other places include: New Jalpaiguri, New Azadpur, Dankuni, Mechheda and Singur.
The governments of Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh will take up three new rail projects on a cost-sharing public-private partnership on these routes: Wadsa-Desaiganj-Gadchiroli, Gadchandur-Adilabad and Manmad-Indore.