Shedbal-Athani – Bijapur- financially unviable- Bagalkot-Kudachi new line Stage I clearance

Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw minister of railways, communications and electronics & information technology to a question put up by Shri Annasaheb Jolle in the Loksabha replied

REGARDING SURVEY OF BELAGAVI RAILWAY LINE

Survey for new Broad Gauge line between Shedbal-Athani – Bijapur (112.6 Km) was completed in 2012-13. The project could not be taken forward being financially unviable.

Bagalkot-Kudachi new line project (142 Km) has been sanctioned in 2010-11. Anticipated cost of the project is `1530 crore. Project is on cost sharing basis, Government of Karnataka is providing land free of cost and sharing 50% construction cost of project.

So far, an expenditure of Rs.326 crore including State share of Rs.194.84 crore has been incurred. 30 Km length from Bagalkot to Khajjidhani has been commissioned. 451 Ha of land out of 789 Ha in Bagalkot district and 94 Ha land out of 190 Ha land in Belagavi district has been handed over so far by State Government of Karnataka and further land acquisition is in various stages of acquisition.

Stage-I clearance for diversion of 16.82 Ha forest land has been received and stage–II clearance has been taken up. Work has been taken up in remaining section in available land. Infrastructure projects in Karnataka are covered under South Western Railway (SWR) zone of Indian Railways. Zone-wise details of all ongoing Railway projects including cost, expenditure and outlay are made available in public domain on Indian Railways website

The completion of any Railway project(s) depends on various factors like quick land acquisition by State Government, forest clearance by officials of forest department, priority of project, shifting of infringing utilities, statutory clearances from various authorities, geological and topographical conditions of area, law and order situation in the area of project site, number of working months in a year for particular project site due to climatic conditions etc. All these factors affect the completion time of the project(s). As such, confirmed completion time of project(s) cannot be ascertained at this stage. Nevertheless, every effort is being made to execute the project(s) expeditiously.