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The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by the Prime Minister, approved four Ministry of Railways multitracking projects on 19 August 2026 at a total cost of about Rs 9,450 crore, to be completed up to 2030-31.
The four lines add about 410 km to the Indian Railways network across eight districts in West Bengal, Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.
They are the Kharagpur-Bhadrak (Ranital) 4th line (173 km), Bhadrak-Haridaspur 4th line (75 km), Gummidipundi-Gudur 3rd and 4th line (90 km) and Cuttack-Paradeep (Badabandha) 3rd and 4th line (72 km).
The projects were planned on the PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan and are expected to carry additional freight of 76 million tonnes per annum, cutting oil imports by about 13 crore litres and CO2 emissions by about 65 crore kg.
Reviews economic trends and takes decisions on major economic proposals, including large infrastructure investments such as these railway projects. Cabinet committees are constituted by the Prime Minister under the Government of India (Transaction of Business) Rules and are not bodies created by the Constitution
The comparison most often tested alongside the CCEA — it decides on defence policy and expenditure, national security matters and senior security appointments
Builds and operates India's dedicated freight railways — the Eastern DFC of about 1,337 km, which is fully commissioned, and the Western DFC of about 1,506 km. Multitracking of conventional routes such as those approved here complements the DFC network on corridors it does not cover
Runs Paradip, the only major port in Odisha, whose rail connectivity the Cuttack-Paradeep multitracking is intended to strengthen for coal, iron ore and container traffic
Integrate the infrastructure planning of separate ministries to cut logistics cost and remove coordination gaps
Key: Launched on 13 October 2021; built on seven engines — railways, roads, ports, waterways, airports, mass transport and logistics infrastructure — and brings 16 ministries onto a common GIS-based digital planning platform developed by BISAG-N. All four projects approved here were planned on this platform
Separate freight from passenger traffic on India's busiest trunk routes
Key: Implemented by DFCCIL; the Eastern DFC runs about 1,337 km and is fully commissioned, while the Western DFC covers about 1,506 km from the JNPT area to Dadri. The east-coast routes being multitracked here lie outside these two corridors, which is why capacity has to be added on the existing alignment
Three of the four projects sit on the east-coast trunk route through Odisha, the state that carries the bulk of India's iron ore and a large share of its coal traffic. Paradip, at the end of the Cuttack-Paradeep line, is Odisha's only major port and stands near the confluence of the Mahanadi and the Bay of Bengal; its foundation stone was laid on 3 January 1962. The release lists the tourist and heritage destinations the added capacity will serve, and several are standard exam entities in their own right: Bhitarkanika National Park in Kendrapara district of Odisha, about 145 sq km and India's second largest mangrove ecosystem; Kuldiha Wildlife Sanctuary in Odisha; and Lalitgiri, the Buddhist monastic site that forms Odisha's 'Diamond Triangle' with Ratnagiri and Udayagiri across the Jajpur and Cuttack districts — a group added to India's UNESCO World Heritage tentative list, with Lalitgiri the oldest of the three. On the southern stretch, the Gummidipundi-Gudur line runs beside Pulicat Lake, the brackish lagoon of about 759 sq km shared between the Tirupati district of Andhra Pradesh and the Thiruvallur district of Tamil Nadu, and near the Nelapattu Bird Sanctuary in Andhra Pradesh's Nellore district.
A railway route's capacity is set by how many trains a section can hold at once, which depends on the number of parallel tracks and the signalling between them. On a heavily used double-line section, a slow freight train blocks the path behind it, and passenger trains are given priority, so freight waits. Laying a third or fourth line lets slow and fast traffic be separated on the same corridor without building a new alignment, which is why the approvals here are for '3rd line' and '4th line' works rather than new routes. The stated payoff is 76 million tonnes per annum of extra freight on corridors that already carry coal, iron ore, cement, steel, containers, automobiles and food grains.
Simple Analogy: It is the difference between widening an existing highway and building a new one — same corridor, same land, but slow lorries and fast cars stop queuing behind each other.
Rail's lower energy use per tonne-kilometre is the basis for the claimed 13 crore litre oil saving and 65 crore kg CO2 reduction, and links these approvals to the National Logistics Policy's modal-shift goal
The Odisha lines serve coal and iron ore flows — the same commodities behind the mining-sector reform debate, so these two stories share a supply chain
Large infrastructure investments come to the CCEA, while defence acquisitions go to the CCS; both are chaired by the Prime Minister but neither is a constitutional body
Bhitarkanika's mangroves, Pulicat's lagoon and Nelapattu's bird habitat all lie along these alignments, making them useful anchors for environment questions about the Bay of Bengal coast
GS Paper 3 > Infrastructure > Railways, Ports and Logistics
General Awareness > Current Affairs > Cabinet Decisions and Infrastructure
General Awareness > Indian Railways and Infrastructure Projects
General Awareness > Government Schemes and Infrastructure Investment
CCEA railway multitracking approvals recur several times a year and are a staple of railway and SSC general awareness papers
Adding a third or fourth parallel line to an existing railway route to raise section capacity without building a new alignment
Million tonnes per annum, the unit used for freight capacity; these four projects are expected to add 76 MTPA
A GIS-based digital platform launched on 13 October 2021 that integrates the infrastructure planning of 16 ministries across seven infrastructure engines
The group of Buddhist monastic sites at Lalitgiri, Ratnagiri and Udayagiri in the Jajpur and Cuttack districts of Odisha, on India's UNESCO World Heritage tentative list