Kothavalasa, Tuni rail project put on hold

Railway Board survey reveals less Rate of Returns (-5 %)

Visakhapatnam: In yet another jolt to Andhra Pradesh, the Railway Board is learnt to have set aside the Kothavalasa-Tuni single line project.
The railway line is the long-felt need of the people of the interior villages of Visakhapatnam district who have been asking for rail connectivity to major stations from their interior villages.

According to highly-placed sources, the board has kept the proposal on the back burner after a survey indicated poor Rate of Return (RoR) on the project. In fact, the NDA government had sanctioned the single line broad gauge railway track between Kothavalasa and Tuni via Devarapalle, Madugula, Chodavaram and Narsipatnam and the same was also listed in the Blue Book 2016-17.

The project was estimated to cost of Rs 3,800 crore but the survey on the project recommended against it. The agency submitted its report to the Railway Ministry and Railway Board recently.

The survey report, according to sources, revealed that the annual Rate of Returns will be – 5 (minus five per cent). The agency has cast a doubt on overcoming problems in land acquisition as the track has to be laid through fertile agriculture lands.

As the present railway line between Vijayawada-Visakhapatnam is quite far away from hundreds of villages located in the rural areas in Visakhapatnam district, there is a crying need for rail connectivity with the main line.

Anakapalle MP Muttamsetti Srinivasa Rao on several occasions raised the issue in Parliament. Srinivasa Rao also stressed the pressing need for rail connectivity to the remote villages in his Anakapalle Lok Sabha constituency.

"Though the project cost has been estimated at Rs.3,800 crore, it would work out to be much more if taken up. In the present circumstances, there is no point in taking up the project,” the source in the Railway Board said. 

By VKL Gayatri