India News | 138 Km of Tunnelling on Rishikesh-Karnaprayag New Line is Complete: Railway Minister

New Delhi, Dec 20 (PTI) The work on 138 km stretch, out of the total 213 km of the Rishikesh-Karnaprayag new line, is complete, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw informed the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.

"The anticipated cost of the project is ?16,216 crore, out of which an expenditure of ?11,335 crore has been incurred up to March, 2023.

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"An outlay of ?4,500 crore has been allocated in financial year 2023-24 for this project," Vaishnaw said in a written reply, responding to questions related to the project raised by BJP MP Mala Rajya Laxmi Shah.

On whether any new technical measures adopted by Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd (RVNL), the Minister said, "The advance technologies of tunneling including Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) are adopted and various project monitoring systems (ISETIA, SISO,THINK PROJECT, TILOS etc.) are used to monitor the day to day progress."

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Asked by when the project is likely to be completed, Vaishnaw cited a number of factors which may have a bearing on the project's speed.

"The completion of any Railway project(s) depends on various factors like quick land acquisition by State Government, forest clearance by officials of forest department, deposition of cost by State Government in Cost sharing projects, shifting of infringing utilities, statutory clearances from various authorities, geological and topographical conditions of area, law and order situation in the area of project(s) site, number of working months in a year for particular project site due to climatic considerations etc," he said.

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