Rail board push for Latehar link

04 December 2017

Railway board chairman Ashwani Lohani on Wednesday instructed officials of the Dhanbad division of East Central Railway to speed up work on the 28km rail link between Tori and Balumath in Latehar.

The link is part of the 44km Tori-Shivpur section, which is crucial for the future of two large open cast mines – Amrapali and Magadh – of Ranchi-based Central Coalfields Ltd (CCL) that have a combined production capacity of around 78 million tonnes. Around half of the coal will be transported through the railways.

The nearest railway siding for Amrapali is 30km and 60km for Magadh.

Lohani, who also visited Tori (situated 212km from Dhanbad) along with Dhanbad divisional railway manager (DRM) Manoj Krishna Akhauri said his visit was also aimed at taking stock of the work on doubling of some rail lines and assessing the situation after the closure of the 34km Dhanbad-Chandrapura line.

On the possibility of running of trains on the 14km section of Dhanbad-Chandrapura line between Kusunda and Sonardih, he said, “The feasibility of laying alternative line on the section is being explored but a final decision will be taken only after holding a meeting with the relevant agencies including the Directorate General of Mines Safety and Bharat Coking Coal Ltd (BCCL) in New Delhi on December 8.”

Incidentally, two MEMU trains have been launched on November 10 by the East Central Railway on the 20km safe section, including a 4km stretch between Dhanbad and Kusunda and 16km section between Chandrapura and Sonardih providing some relief to the passengers affected by the cancellation of 19 trains following the closure of Dhanbad-Chandrapura line.

Lohani said the Son Nagar and Dankuni section of the Eastern Freight Corridor between Ludhiana in Punjab and Dankuni in Bengal was still at an early stage.

Earlier in the day, Lohani interacted with Dhanbad MP P.N. Singh, Raj Sinha and mayor Chandrashekhar Agarwal at the DRM’s office where Agarwal took up the issue of renovation of ponds, including Loco Tank.

Later, Lohani launched an app called Karmik Disha developed by the personnel department of Dhanbad rail division. It will help employees to register their complaints and check their service records. He also unveiled a question bank prepared by the personnel department to help candidates appearing for departmental exams.

Lohani later inspected the diesel shed and running room at Patratu railway junction before leaving for Ranchi at 6pm.

Source: Telegraph