Pune part of two important railway corridors in interim budget 2024

Pune has been included in two out of three important railway corridors in the country’s interim budget for 2024 presented on Thursday. The first railway corridor is ‘energy, cement and mineral’; the second corridor is ‘high density’; and the third is ‘port connectivity corridor’. Out of these three corridors, the Pune to Lonavala route (63 km) has been included in the ‘high density’ corridor whereas the Pune to Solapur to Wadi route (412 km) has been included in the ‘energy, cement and mineral’ corridor.

This also implies that in the next seven to eight years, there will be a third and a fourth route within a distance of 475 km from the Lonavala to Pune to Solapur to Wadi route due to which railway traffic will not only increase but also speed up. As per the interim budget, around 40,000 km of new tracks will be constructed by the railway across all three corridors. Routes having two lanes will be ramped up to four lanes and those having four lanes will be ramped up to six lanes, according to the railway. This will not only increase the number of trains but also train speeds.

A senior railway official on condition of anonymity said, “There are ‘double diamond sleepers’ at five places in the Mumbai-facing yard of Pune station, which are to be removed. A ‘plain turn out’ will be put in their place. This will help ease maintenance and repair work. A ‘double diamond sleeper’ is used to move from one track to the second or third track. This is an important part of turnout. A provision of ₹25 crore has been made in the budget for this purpose.”

While ₹2.52 lakh crore has been allocated for the railway in this year’s budget, works worth ₹15,554 crore will be carried out in Maharashtra. Before 2014, 58 km of railway tracks were built in Maharashtra every year. Now, 400 km of railway tracks are being built in the state every year. One hundred and sixteen stations have been redeveloped in Maharashtra, which includes 16 stations in the Pune division.