Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached Patna on Tuesday to flag off high-speed electric locomotive and to take part in the centenary celebrations of Mahatma Gandhi’s Champaran Satyagraha in Bihar.

PM Modi will also lay the foundation stone for a Rs 882-crore highway project on NH 2 stretch, extending from Aurangabad in Bihar to Chordaha on Bihar-Jharkhand border at a function in Motihari.

Modi reached Patna in an Indian Air Force aircraft and was welcomed by Governor Satyapal Malik, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan and several BJP leaders.

HERE IS THE LIST OF PROJECTS TO BE COMMISSIONED BY PM MODI IN BIHAR  

Sewerage projects

PM Modi will take part in an event to mark the conclusion of the centenary celebrations of the “Champaran Satyagrah” in Bihar and will address 20,000 ‘Swachhagrahis’ (cleanliness ambassadors) at the event.  He will lay the foundation stones of four sewerage projects, worth Rs 1,111.56 crore and aimed at creating a sewage-treatment capacity of 60 million litres daily (MLD) for Patna, at Motihari town of Bihar.

The projects in Patna include the laying of a 376.12-km sewer network in Saidpur and the Pahari sewerage zones.

Three more projects are scheduled to be commissioned soon in the Karmalichak, Digha and Kankarbagh sewerage zones of Patna, which will create a 150-MLD capacity sewage treatment plant (STP) and lay 534.54 kms of sewer network.

Mahatma Gandhi launched the Champaran Satyagrah on April 10, 1917, against the British to fight for rights of farmers who were forced to undertake indigo cultivation.

Swachhagrahis are the ‘foot soldiers’ and motivators to implement the Community Approaches to Sanitation at the village level.

High-speed electric locomotive launch

PM Modi will flag off the country’s first 12,000 horsepower (HP) electric locomotive from the Madhepura loco factory in Bihar.

With the launch of the locomotive, India will join an elite list countries, including Russia, China, Germany and Sweden, that have 12,000 HP and above capacity electric locomotives. Till now, the most powerful electric engine in Indian Railways was of 6,000 HP.

The heavy-haulage locos, with a maximum speed of 110 km per hour, will help de-congest saturated routes by improving the speed and carrying capacity of freight trains.

PM Modi will also dedicate the Madhepura factory — a high-value FDI joint venture with French rolling stock giant Alstom — to the nation.

The Rs 20,000 crore project is expected to roll out a total of 800 high horsepower locos over a period of 11 years.

The total project cost includes Rs 1,300 crore for setting up the factory at Madhepura and two loco maintenance depots at Saharanpur (Uttar Pradesh) and Nagpur (Maharashtra), beside building 800 locos. The average cost of each locomotive is estimated to be Rs 25 crore.

According to the contract agreement, the first five locomotives will be imported while the remaining 795 will be manufactured in the country under the Make in India programme.

The rolling out of the first locomotive on April 10 will be followed by four more locos in the current fiscal.

National Highways project

PM Modi will also lay the foundation stone for a National Highways project for six-laning of the 70 km long section of NH-2, extending from Aurangabad in Bihar to Chordaha on Bihar-Jharkhand border at a function in Motihari.

The cost of the project would be Rs 882 crores.

This section of NH-2 is part of the Delhi – Kolkata section of the Golden Quadrilateral.

After widening, it will be have one flyover, 15 underpass, 7 major bridges, 24 minor bridges, 174 culverts, 12 foot over bridges, 26 bus bays, 7 truck lay bays and 2 wayside amenities.