The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday cleared two multitracking railway projects in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh and approved the construction of a 4-lane Badvel-Nellore highway in Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday. The two railway multitracking projects, costing approximately Rs 3,399 crore, will add about 176 km to the existing Indian Railways network across four districts in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.

Scheduled for completion by 2029-30, these projects aim to enhance line capacity for faster and seamless movement of passengers and goods. They will improve connectivity for around 784 villages with a combined population of nearly 19.74 lakh.

These routes are critical for transporting commodities such as coal, cement, clinker, gypsum, fly ash, containers, agricultural products, and petroleum.

The capacity augmentation is expected to increase freight traffic by 18.40 million tonnes per annum. The projects are also expected to reduce oil imports by 20 crore litres and cut carbon emissions by 99 crore kilograms, equivalent to planting 4 crore trees. Construction is projected to generate approximately 74 lakh human-days of employment.

Separately, the Cabinet approved the Rs 3,653.10 crore construction of a 108.134 km 4-lane Badvel-Nellore highway corridor in Andhra Pradesh under the Design-Build-Finance-Operate-Transfer (DBFOT) model. This corridor will connect important nodes on the Vishakhapatnam-Chennai, Hyderabad-Bengaluru, and Chennai-Bengaluru industrial corridors, and provide strategic access to the Krishnapatnam Port. The new highway will reduce the travel distance to Krishnapatnam Port by nearly 34 km, cutting travel time by about one hour. This will lower fuel consumption, reduce vehicle operating costs, and decrease the carbon footprint.

The project is expected to generate around 20 lakh man-days of direct employment and 23 lakh man-days of indirect employment, with further economic benefits anticipated in the surrounding region.