The much-delayed Ahmednagar-Beed-Parli Vaijnath project, which will see a completely new 250 kilometre railway corridor constructed to connect Marathwada and Western Maharashtra, was set in motion a couple of days ago with Central Railway coming up with three separate work orders for the project at a total cost of around Rs 177 crore. This is among the first major work orders for the Rs 2,826 crore project and it involves money for the laying of earthwork and other preliminary construction to lay the groundwork for track-laying and signalling at a later date.
The tenders put out by CR are for the Amalner-Raimoha-Beed leg of the project and includes a 10 kilometre section costing Rs 59 crore, a 12 km stretch costing Rs 59 crores and another 18 km stretch costing Rs 58 crores. These tenders will be opened by August 21 and work on them is stipulated to be completed in 30 months.
On board for almost a decade now and bandied about as a potential vote-catcher by almost all parties trying to seek electoral gains in the Marathwada and Western Maharashtra belts of the state, CR officials believe the project is now finally ready for take-off.
The reasons, according to some of them, might be political. "With the Bharatiya Janata Party at the Centre and the state, the project comes back to life because the project will connect two parts of the state (Marathwada and Western Maharashtra) where the BJP did fairly well in the October state assembly polls. The project has the potential to change the fortunes of the belt, bring travelling relief to lakhs, all of which can readily turn into votes for the party backing it," explained a senior railway official. The BJP incidentally had done well in Marathwada, winning 15 out of the 46 Vidhan Sabha seats on offer.
Over the past one and half months, the project has seen hectic activity. In the last week of May, prime minister Narendra Modi had taken a review of the progress on the project during his interaction with state bureaucrats. Close on the heels of the review, the state government in the first week of June sanctioned its share of Rs 1,413 crore to build the new line. This is one of the eight projects in the state in which the railways and the state government will be sharing costs.
On June 28, railway minister Suresh Prabhu and the chief minister Devendra Fadnavis presided over a function where the railways and the state signed a deal to form a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to work on these projects.
