Union Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw addressing the media after the Cabinet briefing in New Delhi on Wednesday
| Photo Credit:
SUSHIL KUMAR VERMA
The Cabinet and the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on Wednesday together approved three projects in the railways, road and farm sectors with an outlay of over ₹4,800 crore.
The Cabinet gave its nod to the Modernisation of Command Area Development and Water Management (M-CADWM) as a sub-scheme of the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY) for the 2025-2026 period, with an initial outlay of ₹1,600 crore.
The scheme aims to modernise irrigation water-supply network to supply water from the existing canals or other sources in a designated cluster. It will make robust back-end infrastructure for micro-irrigation by farmers from an established source to the farms’ gates, up to 1 hectare, with underground pressurised piped irrigation, according to an official statement.
The initial approval is for taking up pilot projects across various agro-climatic zones in the country by challenge funding the States. Based on the learnings in the design and structuring of these projects, the National Plan for Command Area Development and Water Management will be launched in April 2026 for the 16th Finance Commission period, the statement said.
Meanwhile, the CCEA approved two infrastructure projects in the transport sector that are aimed at removing congestion and enhancing integrated transport development. It approved the construction of the 19.2-km, six-lane, access-controlled Zirakpur bypass worth ₹1,878.31 crore in Punjab and Haryana on the “hybrid annuity mode”.
The primary purpose of the project is to ease up congestion in Zirakpur, Panchkula and surrounding areas by diverting traffic from Patiala, Delhi and Mohali Aerocity, and providing direct connectivity to Himachal Pradesh.
The proposal aims to reduce the travel time and ensure hassle-free traffic movement in the congested urban section of national highways 7, 5 and 152, an official statement said.
The CCEA also gave its nod for the doubling of the Tirupati-Pakala-Katpadi single railway-line section of 104 km in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu with a total cost of ₹1,332 crore, Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said.
This is an essential route for transportation of commodities such as coal, agricultural commodities, cement and other minerals. The capacity-augmentation work will result in an additional freight traffic of magnitude-4 million tonnes per annum.
“The railways being an environment-friendly and energy-efficient mode of transportation will help both in achieving the climate goals and minimising the logistics cost of the country, reducing oil import (four crore litres) and lowering CO2 emissions (20 crore kg), which is equivalent to the plantation of one crore trees,” the Minister said.
Published on April 9, 2025
Union Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw addressing the media after the Cabinet briefing in New Delhi on Wednesday
| Photo Credit:
SUSHIL KUMAR VERMA
The Cabinet and the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on Wednesday together approved three projects in the railways, road and farm sectors with an outlay of over ₹4,800 crore.
The Cabinet gave its nod to the Modernisation of Command Area Development and Water Management (M-CADWM) as a sub-scheme of the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY) for the 2025-2026 period, with an initial outlay of ₹1,600 crore.
The scheme aims to modernise irrigation water-supply network to supply water from the existing canals or other sources in a designated cluster. It will make robust back-end infrastructure for micro-irrigation by farmers from an established source to the farms’ gates, up to 1 hectare, with underground pressurised piped irrigation, according to an official statement.
The initial approval is for taking up pilot projects across various agro-climatic zones in the country by challenge funding the States. Based on the learnings in the design and structuring of these projects, the National Plan for Command Area Development and Water Management will be launched in April 2026 for the 16th Finance Commission period, the statement said.
Meanwhile, the CCEA approved two infrastructure projects in the transport sector that are aimed at removing congestion and enhancing integrated transport development. It approved the construction of the 19.2-km, six-lane, access-controlled Zirakpur bypass worth ₹1,878.31 crore in Punjab and Haryana on the “hybrid annuity mode”.
The primary purpose of the project is to ease up congestion in Zirakpur, Panchkula and surrounding areas by diverting traffic from Patiala, Delhi and Mohali Aerocity, and providing direct connectivity to Himachal Pradesh.
The proposal aims to reduce the travel time and ensure hassle-free traffic movement in the congested urban section of national highways 7, 5 and 152, an official statement said.
The CCEA also gave its nod for the doubling of the Tirupati-Pakala-Katpadi single railway-line section of 104 km in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu with a total cost of ₹1,332 crore, Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said.
This is an essential route for transportation of commodities such as coal, agricultural commodities, cement and other minerals. The capacity-augmentation work will result in an additional freight traffic of magnitude-4 million tonnes per annum.
“The railways being an environment-friendly and energy-efficient mode of transportation will help both in achieving the climate goals and minimising the logistics cost of the country, reducing oil import (four crore litres) and lowering CO2 emissions (20 crore kg), which is equivalent to the plantation of one crore trees,” the Minister said.
Published on April 9, 2025
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The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making
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It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution
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