Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Thursday said the proposed Surat-Dankuni east-west rail corridor will connect several previously unserved areas of Maharashtra and give a major boost to industrial and rural development in the state.
The corridor, announced in the Budget, will have dedicated freight and passenger services and provide connectivity to western Maharashtra, Nashik and other regions, Vaishnaw said while addressing an event in Mumbai via video link from Delhi.
“The east-west corridor is being designed in such a way that it will be able to connect many such areas of Maharashtra which have never been connected before. Now, all those areas will have connectivity,” he said.
Vaishnaw said the proposal was developed after Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis suggested at a recent function in Pune that the eastern and western Dedicated Freight Corridors be brought together and linked with new industrial development zones.
The minister also said the eastern and western Dedicated Freight Corridors had been completed and would strengthen Maharashtra’s industrial development by facilitating the movement of goods from Jawaharlal Nehru Port to northern, eastern and central parts of the country.The completion of the freight corridors would also boost activity at the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) and support industrial development in Mumbai and its surrounding areas, he said.
Vaishnaw said Mumbai’s suburban railway network currently operates around 3,200 local train services, and increasing the number by about 10 percent would improve passenger movement.
