According to a press release, the 41st meeting of the Network Planning Group (NPG) took place on Wednesday in the nation’s capital with the active involvement of senior officials from important member ministries and agencies.
The Network Planning Group (NPG) held its 41st session in New Delhi on Wednesday. Chaired by the Special Secretary of the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).
The meeting saw the active participation of senior officials from key member ministries/departments including, DoT, MoEF&CC, M/o Railways, MoPSW, MoCA, M/o Power, Niti Aayog, MoRTH, and MoPNG,” the release stated.
The Nagpur-Vijaywada corridor’s four-lane controlled Greenfield highway and new rail connection projects connecting Barejadi Nandej to Sanand in Gujarat and Barbil, Barsuan, and Nayagrah in Odisha were discussed at the meeting.
The senior officials from the MoRTH shared that the Four-Lane Accessed Controlled Greenfield Highway, covering a distance of 306 km, will connect Mancherial to Vijayawada.
The proposed project will improve connectivity to 21 economic nodes such as Mega Food Parks, Fishing Seafood Clusters, Pharma and Medical Clusters, SEZs, and Textile Clusters across the 11 districts and more than 27 social nodes across 3 States.
Additionally, it is predicted that the proposed alignment of the highway will reduce travel time from 17 hours to 8 hours while increasing the average speed from 40 kph to 80 kph. After completion, 11.9 crore job possibilities will be available.
Senior M/o Railways officials explained at the conference how the projected Barbil-Barsuan-Nayagarh Railway line, which would cover a distance of 181 km, would link the region’s key iron mines and facilitate trade in steel in Eastern India. 15 additional stations would be built along the proposed route near significant mining sites like Sundergarh and Keonjhar.
All three projects were evaluated by the NPG and recommended for implementation with certain suggestions to address last-mile connectivity and achieve the right multimodal logistics share. These include intermodal infrastructure, the creation of multi-modal logistics park facilities, and other terminal infrastructure related to railways and roadways.