Getting future ready, Indian Railways has taken up major tunnelling works in a big way. Five tunnels are being constructed for the broad gauge third line between the 26.50 km long Barkhera - Budni section of Bhopal – Itarsi third line project.

The national transporter has focussed on the execution of maintenance works pending for several years, confronting the Railways with severe bottlenecks.

Railways’ PSU, Rail Vikas Nigam Limited is constructing five tunnels with New Austrian Tunneling Method having ballast less track in connection with third electrified broad-gauge railway line between Barkhera - Budni on Bhopal - Itarsi route on Bhopal Division of West Central Railway in Sehore and Raisin districts of Madhya Pradesh.

The Railways maintained that this will ease congestion on Golden Diagonal, Delhi-Chennai route.

With the commissioning of the third line, trains shall run at a speed of 130 Kmph between the Bina-Bhopal-Itarsi section.

RVNL is constructing these tunnels in the horse shoe section; this form consists of a semi-circular roof together with arched sides and a curved invert.

The method followed to construct this tunnel is the New Austrian Tunneling Method. NATM is a support method to stabilize the tunnel perimeter by means of sprayed concrete, anchors and other supports and uses monitoring to control stability.