Prime Minister Narendra Modi will likely lay the foundation stone for the long-awaited Dharwad-Belagavi via Kittur railway project during his visit to Hubballi on Jan 12, Hubballidharwadinfra.com reported.
PM Modi will be in the city to inaugurate the National Youth Festival on January 12,. The youth festival is being organised to mark the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda. PM Modi will also inaugurate the campus of IIT-Dharwad.
In Dec 2021, the Karnataka cabinet approved the new 73-km rail line between Belagavi and Dharwad via the historic town of Kittur.
Once the new railway line project is completed, the travel time between Belagavi and Dharwad will be reduced to merely an hour compared to the three-hour travel time on the current rail line between the two cities as trains will no longer need to take a circumlocutory route via Londa and Khanapur. The railway line project is expected to ready by March, 2026.
The greenfield railway line will be built at an estimated cost of Rs 927.4 crore. Under the project, 11 new railway stations will come up, including one in the historic Kittur town. The stations have been proposed at Dharwad, Kyarakoppa, Mammigatti, Teguru, Kittur, Hulikatti, M.K. Hubballi, Bagewadi, Kanvikarvinkoppa, Desur and Belagavi.
The proposed project, which has been a long-standing demand of the people of North Karnataka, received impetus after the late Suresh Angadi (BJP leader and then Belagavi MP) was appointed Union minister of State of Railways in 2019.
Angadi got the survey for this Railway line sanctioned in August 2019.
The Railway Board has already sanctioned a sum of ₹823 crores for the project, and the land acquisition process is almost over. With the Union Government already given the necessary clearances, the project is ready to be launched.
According to Railways estimates, the Civil Engineering component of the project costs Rs.755.69 crores, while electrical works are expected to cost Rs.25.93 crores. While line electrification is pegged at Rs.67.79 crores, signal & telecommunication work costs Rs.77.99 crores.