NELLORE: Vice President of India, M. Venkaiah Naidu turned emotional after dedicating the longest tunnel (6.6 km) built on the Krishnapatnam to Obulavaripalli track, to the nation and to the people of Kadapa and Nellore regions.
He was addressing a gathering at Cherlopalli railway station built on the new railway line in Kadapa district on Saturday evening. He said that the railway line passing through his native village Srirampuram in Venkatachalam mandal was the realisation of his childhood dream.
The Vice President, who travelled in a special train in the new railway line along with family members to see the tunnel from Venkatachalam road to Cherlopalli, said he was craving to see the tunnel and the line and it was one of the happiest days in his life.
“Railway officials ruled out the possibility of the line when I raised the subject decades back but Adavani ji and former railway minister Nitish Kumar had taken up the proposal during Atal Behari Vajpayee regime and I have been pursuing this since then,” the Vice President said.
He further added, “Nitish took the initiative to carry out a survey, estimates and proposal and Narendra Modi government has allocated funds. The project is completed and my lifetime dream is realised.”
Reiterating that this was the happiest day of his life, the Vice President said he was also equally happy while launching housing for all, smart city scheme and roads to every village through Grameen Sadak Yojana.
Mr Naidu said, “I became emotional while travelling in the train as it passes through my native village and ancestral property where I had spent my childhood.”
He said no one had imagined at that time that a train will pass through the hills one day. “The line was envisaged, planned, surveyed and sanctioned and finally completed while I am the Vice President now,” Mr Naidu said. “The tunnel was completed within a record time of 43 months and it is an engineering marvel, second largest tunnel in the country and first electrified longest tunnel,” Mr Naidu added.
According to Mr Naidu, the line covering 112 km had been completed at a cost of around `1,993 crore with nine stations along the route, 146 bridges, 60 road under bridges and two tunnels (1 km and 6.7 km). One salient feature was that there was a level crossing so there was no scope for accidents involving cattle. The newly commissioned line of 112 km reduces the travel time to five hours as compared to 10 hours earlier for a goods train to travel from Krishnapatnam Port to Obulavaripalli.
It also reduced the distance by 72 km for the trains coming from Guntakal division to Krishnapatnam and reduced traffic density in Obulavaripalle-Renig-unta-Gudur section.
The new line would facilitate operating freight trains on Obulvaripalli-Venkatachalam-Krishna-patnam Port while providing the shortest path between Chennai-Howrah and Chennai Mumbai rail route. The new line would also ease congestion of both passenger carrying and freight carrying trains in Vijayawada - Gudur - Renigunta - Guntakal sections. Significant growth in freight carriage was expected. The new train line would definitely help the socio-economic growth in the area.
