Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar:
The Railway Minister and the union Transport Minister will hold an important meeting in Delhi at 5 pm, on April 8, regarding the construction of a tunnel at Autram Ghat in Kannad tehsil on the Solapur-Dhule highway.
In the meeting, the discussions will be conducted on the construction of a tunnel and railway line in the Ghat. It will be clear after the meeting whether the project will be approved after the discussions between the Railways and National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). A joint meeting is being held between union Minister Nitin Gadkari and Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav. MP Dr Bhagwat Karad along with senior officials of Railways and NHAI will be present at this time.
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The cost of the tunnel project is approximately Rs 7,000 crore.
There is a possibility to discuss and decide on completing this project by sharing half of the cost of the Railways and NHAI. If this happens, it will give impetus to the construction of a railway line from Beed to Solapur via Chalisgaon. If the tunnel work is approved, it will be convenient to get highway connectivity to North, Central and South India.
Meanwhile, discussions about the tunnel work have been under since 2011. No solution has been found for 14 years. When the NHAI prepared an alternative alignment for the tunnel and sent it to the headquarters for approval, a new proposal to build a tunnel along the railway line came to the fore.