The Union Steel Ministry has identified 38 projects with infrastructure gaps and the action needed on these. The projects are across four ministries that include railways, shipping, ports, and waterways; civil aviation; and petroleum and natural gas.

Of these, there are 11 new projects, while 27 are existing ones, according to an internal report by the Ministry.

In all, there are 10 projects of the railways; nine are of Ministry of Shipping, Ports, and Waterways; six each of National Highways Authority of India and the Ministry of Civil Aviation; and seven are of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.

Linkage Projects

All projects that are taken up by the Railways are linkage-related.

For instance, doubling the rail line along the Angul—Talcher—Sukhinda line is mentioned to serve Talcher coal mines, steel plants, and other industries in the Angul industrial area and also to link Jharsuguda and Sambalpur areas with ports.

Similarly, the tripling of the Banspani–Jakhapura line has been mentioned to link iron-ore mines in Odisha and Jharkhand to coastal areas and also to serve steel plants and other industries in the Sukhinda–Kalinganagar industrial area.

Connecting Paradip Port to the Dedicated Freight Corridor via the Paradip–Haridaspur line (a SPV of the Railway) and linking of Banspani–Jakhapura line to Paradip port are some of the important projects with infrastructure gaps that the Steel Ministry has identified.

Also mentioned for action in the report are the Jharsuguda–Sambalpur–Titlagarh–Vijaynagaram and the Raipur–Titlagarh–Vijaynagaram lines, both of which are required for better linkages for coal and iron-ore traffic to and from Vizag and coal and steel from Vizag to other parts of South India.

Use of Waterways

The Ministry report also points out that action is required in the Haldia-Sahibganj-Patna–Varanasi waterways (or National Waterways 1); on the Brahmani River connecting Talcher, Angul, and Kalinganagar (or National Waterways 2); and also on the Amba River (NW 10) routes.

“Operationalisation is needed for cost-effective transportation,” the report mentions.

Incidentally, the Union Steel Ministry has been writing to mills and the Ministry of Shipping, Ports, and Waterways to push the waterways as an alternative and cost-effective route to transport coal, steel, and other offerings.

Decongestion of Paradip port by enhancing capacity (to 12.5 million tonne per annum by 2022 and 25 mtpa by 2025) and the creation of deep draught captive berths for steel plants at Paradip port are some of the major projects in the infrastructure gap report.

Decongestion of Haldia, Dhamra, and Subarnarekha is also mentioned in the report.

Other Ministries

The report mentions the need for four lanes on the NH53 stretch between Duburi and Paradip, two additional lanes on SH20 (Duburi-Panikolli), NH720 (Duburi-Bamnipal-Keonjhar) between Nagarnar and Visakhapatnam, and the NHAI widening of the NH2 stretch between Burnpur and Kolkata.

Similarly, airstrip creation and expansion and airport expansion projects in Nagarnar, Angul, Raurkela, Jamshedpur, Jharsuguda, and Raipur also found mention.

The steel ministry has also called for the operationalisation of pipelines like Kanai Chatta–Shrimapur; Mallavaram–Bhilwara–Bhopal Vijaipur; Jagdishpur, Haldia, and Bokaro Dhamra phases 2 and 3; Barauni–Guwahati; and Srikakulam–Angul, among others. “The operationalisation will help supply of cheaper and green fuel, that is gas for steel production,” the report said.

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