Thanks to cement co, Mukutban get a rly station

Nagpur: Ten years after proposing a station at Mukutban in Yavatmal district, Central Railway laid the foundation stone for it on March 2. While officially it is meant to benefit at least 30 villages in the vicinity, railway officials told TOI that Mukutban station is being constructed for cement transportation from a Birla group company.
DRM Somesh Kumar said the station has been a long-pending demand of the people in the area and was proposed in 2009-10. Railways expects that over 50,000 people from nearby villages will benefit for travel to Sewagram, Wardha, Chandrapur, Adilabad, Nanded and Mumbai.

More than the income from passenger traffic, Railways is hoping to boost revenue by way of coal and cement transportation. Central Railway officials admit that the cement company is investing Rs61 crore for a private siding at Mukutban and hence a halt station was necessary.

“The company was pushing for the siding for the last three years. We expect to transport at last 14,000 tonnes of fly ash, coal and cement every day from here,” said the officials.

Mukutban came into news after the ministry of environment diverted 458 hectares of reserve forest land for Reliance Cementation Private Limited in January 2018. This diverted land is about 50 kms from Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary in Pandharkawda where tigress T1 (Avni) had turned a man eater.

The Reliance project has now been taken over by Birla Corporation which is investing Rs2,400 crore. Reliance had been pursuing the project since 2009 when Ashok Chavan of the Congress was chief minister. The forest diversion officially moved in May 2011 and state cleared it in April 2012 and the matter was forwarded to the Centre, which gave an in-principle approval in December 2012.

However, sources in the forest department claimed that the diversion of forest land could take place only after strict conditions stipulated by the ministry of environment were complied with.

The foundation for the new station was laid by minister of state for home and Chandrapur MP Hansraj Ahir in the presence of Wani MLA Sanjeevreddy Bodkurwar, Kumar and senior division railway officials.

Mukutban station falls on the railway route used by trains going from Nagpur to Aurangabad and Nanded. The line was constructed 20 years ago and only one express train and 4 weekly trains pass through this route. Passengers do not prefer this route owing to the long travel time.