Minister of Railways Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu in the presence of Chief Minister of Jharkhand Shri Raghubar Das, inaugurated Hazaribagh - Barkakana section of Koderma - Ranchi New Railway line project. Also flagged off extension of Koderma - Hazaribagh Town Passenger upto Barkakana. Minister of State for Railways Shri Rajen Gohain was specially present on the occasion. Chairman Railway Board Shri AK Mital and other Railway Board Members were also present on the occasion.

Salient Features of the Hazaribagh-Barkakana section of Koderma Ranchi New Railway Line Project :

●       203 km long Koderma – Ranchi new line project which was pending for so many years (sanctioned in 1998-99) is now near completion. 80 km long Koderma- Hazaribagh section was commissioned by Hon’ble Prime Minister on 20^th Feb 2015 and passenger services are being introduced today in further 57 km long section of Hazaribagh- Barkakana. Work on Barkakana- Ranchi section which is 66 km long is also in progress. With completion of this link, distance from Barkakana to Koderma by rail route will reduce by 60 km. This will also facilitate movement of Coal traffic. This will also pave way for completion of this entire project which was sanctioned 18 years back.

●       This project is on 50:50 cost sharing basis with Government of Jharkhand and hence the state government has also played its role in not only in facilitating the project execution but also in funding.

●       Koderma- Ranchi railway line project will serve the backward districts of Jharkhand state. Further, it will also serve Hazaribagh and Chatra Districts in addition to Ranchi. These three districts are affected due to left wing extremism and providing better connectivity will open new roads for commerce and trade in these districts thereby curbing the menace of naxalism.

●       Jharkhand occupies a very important place in Indian Railways network as the land is full of natural resources particularly mineral resources. Coal and iron ore rich belts of Jharkhand provide important resources for power generation and iron industry.

●       Railways increased annual allocation for projects in Jharkhand from average Rs 457 crore in 2009-2014 to Rs 1544 cr in the last three budgets. This is a significant increase and has given tremendous impetus to project execution in the state. The fund allotment is progressively increasing and in 2016-17, an outlay of Rs 2782 Cr has been provided for projects in Jharkhand.

●       In last two financial years and current financial year, railways commissioned 361 km of projects falling partly or fully in Jharkhand. Further, in the last two budgets, new projects having total length of around 1150 km have been included which fall partly/fully in Jharkhand.

●       As on date, 30 projects having total cost of Rs 15,000 Cr are in different stages of execution which fall partly or fully in Jharkhand. The aggregate length of these projects is around 2500 km.

The abstract schedule including timings, days of run etc. of the train service introduced today is as under:

The Indian Railway extended two pairs of passenger trains  viz. 53371/53372 Koderma-Hazaribagh Town Passenger and 53373/53374 Koderma-Hazaribagh Town Passenger upto Barkakana. The length of the new section is about 54 km.

Primary Maintenance: Barkakana

Nature of service: Daily

AKS/MKV/AK