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Long-pending railway line gets Rs503 crore shot in the arm

This included Rs503.92 crore for the 261km railway line. The state has already made a provision of Rs68.60 crore in the budget estimates for 2016-17.

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The long-pending Ahmednagar-Beed-Parli-Vaijanath railway line has received a shot in the arm with the state government making a provision of Rs503 crore for the project.

On Monday, the first day of the state budget session, the state government tabled supplementary demands worth Rs13,032 crore, including Rs3,011 crore non-plan expenditure, Rs6,132 crore plan expenditure and Rs3,888 crore for central schemes.

This included Rs503.92 crore for the 261km railway line. The state has already made a provision of Rs68.60 crore in the budget estimates for 2016-17.

In the railway budget, the Ahmednagar-Beed-Parli railway line project got the maximum funding of Rs400 crore for financial year 2016-17. The line is BJP's pet project and is a 50-50 joint venture between the railways and the state. Both, the state and the railway ministry have pinned their hopes on the project – BJP's trump card in Marathwada and western Maharashtra, the two regions the rail line will connect.

As reported by dna earlier, the state and the Centre want the Ahmednagar-Beed line to be completed by March 2019, so that it can showcased for the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections to be held that year. On May 27 last year, prime minister Narendra Modi had reviewed the project on the Pragati platform, wherein it was decided to speed up land acquisition and railway work on the stretch.

The line has seen considerable speeding up over the last few months with the railways and the state spending over Rs250 crore on the project in the last one year. The line had a budgetary provision of Rs125 crore last year. The financial model changed in June 2015, when the state agreed to pool in half of the funds for the Rs2,826 crore project.

Work on the entire 168km stretch between Ahmednagar and Beed is now off the ground and work on major bridges, culverts and other ground-laying civil engineering works is currently being taken up.

The state has also made provisions for heads such as grants to municipal corporations and councils to improve basic amenities and developmental works (Rs131.75 crore and Rs123.68 crore respectively). A provision of Rs262 crore has been proposed for cyber security investigation, Rs1,750 crore for the ambitious programme to provide housing for all in urban areas, Mukhyamantri rural drinking water programme (Rs500 crore), which will provide safe and sufficient drinking water in rural areas and Rs861.51 crore for the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA).

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