New railway line to be commissioned by MoR

The Hassan-Bengaluru (via Shravanabelagola) new line railway project is likely to be commissioned by end-March 2017. Currently, work on the entire project has been completed and the Commission of Railway Safety (CRS) has already conducted the safety inspection. The project will be made operational once the CRS accords safety clearance. The project involves the construction of a new broad gauge line between Hassan and Bengaluru at an estimated cost of Rs 12.9 billion. The project has been implemented in five sections – Hassan-Shravanabelagola (42 km), Chikbannavar-Neelamangala (14 km), Neelamangala-Solur (19 km), Hirisave-Shravanabelagola (19 km) and Solur-Hirisave (72 km). The line will pass through Shravanabelagola, Yediyur, Kunigal and Neelamangala. Meanwhile, the Sengottai-Aryankavu stretch of the Punalur-Sengottai section under the Quilon-Tirunelveli-Tenkasi-Virudhunagar gauge conversion project was inaugurated on March 4, 2017. The project involved the conversion of the existing 357 km metre gauge rail line between Quilon and Virudhunagar via Tirunelveli and Tenkasi in Kerala and Tamil Nadu respectively to a broad gauge line, at an investment of Rs 9.21 billion.