NTPC, SWR sign pact to double Hotgi-Kudgi section

The Dollar Business Bureau

Government-owned NTPC has signed a pact with the Indian railway zone - South Western Railways (SWR), for doubling a 134 km section of the zone under the scheme of customer funding concession.

“As per the customer funding scheme of Ministry of Railways policy under participative model for rail connectivity, NTPC has decided to fund the construction cost of the rail section,” the energy conglomerate said in a statement. 

NTPC has submitted Rs.946 crore with SWR zone as the cost of doubling of 134 km railway section between Hotgi-Kudgi, it added. 

The section includes 10 block stations, 8 key bridges and 2 vital bridges on the rivers Bheema and Don.

SWR has already commenced the work and the project is expected to be completed by March, 2020. 

In addition to serving the requirements of coal transportation of NTPC’s power project of 4,000 MW, the Augmented Rail Infrastructure is expected to provide a big boost to Northern Karnataka’s economic activities, the statement said. 

The pact was signed by SWR’s Chief Traffic Planning Manager A S Rao and by NTPC-Kudgi’s Group General Manager Harbans Singh. 

Though the doubling project was sanctioned by the Railway Board in 2014-15, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs gave its clearance on October 1, 2015.

NTPC’s Kudgi is a 4,000MW supercritical thermal power plant located at Kudgi village in Bijapur District of Karnataka. It is NTPC's first 800 MW supercritical project and is being built in two stages. The first stage will have a capacity of 2,400MW (3 x 800 MW) and the second stage will have 1,600 MW capacity (2 x 800MW).

The first unit of 800 MW is expected to start commercial production in September this year.