Vijayawada: As many as 32 railway projects – involving 16 new lines and as many doubling – are under different stages of planning, approval or implementation in Andhra Pradesh. The cost for these projects totals Rs64,429 crore. These cover a length of 5,704km falling fully/partly in the state.
This was informed to Parliament by railway minister Piyush Goyal in reply to a question from Parimal Nathwani MP. The minister said a line length of 336km has been commissioned at an expenditure of Rs10,455 crore up to March 2020.
Parimal Nathwani quoted the minister as saying the average annual budget allocation for infrastructure projects and safety works, falling fully/partly in AP, during 2014-19 has increased to Rs2,830 crore per year from Rs886 crore during 2009-14.
The minister said that this was an increase of 219 per cent over the average annual budget allocation of 2009-14. In 2019-20, the budget allocation was raised further to Rs3,885 crore, in 2020-21 it was increased to Rs4,910 crore, and in 2021-22 the highest ever budget outlay of Rs 5812 crore has been proposed for these projects.
Parimal Nathwani said a question he raised in Parliament was about the new railway projects sanctioned for Andhra Pradesh in the last three years, along with the details of these projects, estimated costs, status of implementation and the schedule of completion.
In his reply, the minister also said that during the last three years, four double line and five railway electrification projects falling partly/fully in AP have been included in the budget, subject to requisite approvals.
