The Konkan Railway Runs About 740 km From Roha to Thokur Through 91 Tunnels and Took About Seven Years to Build

The Konkan Railway runs about 740 km down India’s west coast from Roha in Maharashtra to Thokur near Mangaluru in Karnataka, and the railway’s own count is 91 tunnels along the way. Business Standard reported in January 1998 that building it took seven years, and Business Today puts the first train on the completed line on 26 January 1998.

Why published lengths do not match

Official figures for the line differ from one document to the next. A Press Information Bureau (PIB) release of 20 June 2022 gives the route as 740 km: 382 km in Maharashtra, 106 km in Goa and 252 km in Karnataka, with 970 km of track. A PIB release of 29 March 2022 says 741 km, and the corporation’s chairman used 739 km in December 2025.

The older figures differ more. Business Standard counted 760 km, 92 tunnels, 179 major bridges and 1,819 minor bridges when the line was finished. The Swedish aid agency Sida, which helped pay for tunnelling machines, describes the project as 837 km with about 2,000 bridges and 84 km of tunnels. The 2025 statement says nearly 1,900 bridges. None of these documents explains the changes, so this article uses the railway’s recent releases for the line as it stands today: about 740 km and 91 tunnels.

A missing link and a plan to pay for it

E. Sreedharan, the first chairman and managing director of Konkan Railway Corporation, told Business Today in 2019 how the project started. George Fernandes became Railway Minister in December 1989, and in his first week he asked the Railway Board for a line joining Bombay to Mangalore along the west coast, which Sreedharan called an important missing link on the railway map.

The obstacle was money. According to Sreedharan, the line was expected to run 840 km and cost Rs 1,600 crore, when the annual budget for all new lines was around Rs 300 crore and an allocation above Rs 25 crore for one line was considered high. At that pace he estimated 20 to 25 years of construction.

His answer, which he put to Fernandes on 2 January 1990, was a separate company owned by the Centre and the states. Maharashtra, Goa and Karnataka lie on the route, and Kerala was invited in as the southernmost beneficiary. In his account the four states would cover a third of the cost and the market the rest. Sreedharan says the Finance Minister, Madhu Dandavate, the Planning Commission’s deputy chairman, Ramakrishna Hegde, and Prime Minister V. P. Singh all agreed within days.

Business Standard’s 1998 report records the structure that resulted. Konkan Railway Corporation was incorporated in 1990 as a public sector company. By 1996 to 1997 its authorised capital was Rs 800 crore, split between the Government of India (51 per cent), Maharashtra (22), Karnataka (15), Kerala (6) and Goa (6). The line does not enter Kerala, which joined because it expected an economic benefit. Tax-free bonds, the first issued in November 1993, supplied 61.5 per cent of the Rs 3,247.90 crore the corporation had raised by then.

Built by Indian Railways engineers

The corporation’s managing director, B. Rajaram, told Business Standard that the line was built by engineers and other personnel from Indian Railways, because no private party had the expertise the job needed. Sida’s evaluation records one outside contribution: a Swedish credit of SEK 45 million that paid for nine hydraulic drilling machines and seven loaders for tunnel excavation. Sida calls the project the biggest railway undertaking of the century in Asia.

The line opened in pieces. Business Standard’s report of 22 January 1998 described the 20 km between Sawantwadi and Pernem in Goa as ready for regular traffic, the last stretch of the build, and quoted Rajaram saying that industries had started to appear along sections as they became operative. The Hans India reports that Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee dedicated the railway to the country on 1 May 1998.

On what the line saves, the two sources that give numbers differ. Business Standard says it shortens the Mumbai to Mangalore distance by 1,127 km and the time by 26 hours. Sreedharan, speaking in 2019, says travel time fell by 12 hours and the distance by 650 km.

Three years late, with Goa’s soft soil to blame

Business Standard recorded that the project finished nearly three years after its original date, with a cost overrun of 222 per cent against a final cost of Rs 3,350 crore, of which Rs 950 crore was financing charges. The article does not say what the overrun was measured against, and Sreedharan’s Rs 1,600 crore estimate for 840 km uses a different baseline.

The newspaper gives two reasons for the delay: the tunnel in Goa took longer because the soil was softer than assessed, and resistance from part of the local population. Its longest tunnel, 6.5 km, was described as the longest railway tunnel in that part of the world.

Tunnels, cuttings and one tall viaduct

The 2022 PIB release says the 91 tunnels add up to 84.496 km, about 11 per cent of the route, and that forced ventilation was fitted in seven of the long ones. The Hans India adds that the line has 350 cuttings, 66 of them classed as essential and vulnerable. In December 2025 the corporation’s chairman, Santosh Kumar Jha, said nearly 42 per cent of the track passes through tunnels or deep cuttings.

Among the bridges, the railway’s monsoon release names the Panval viaduct between Ratnagiri and Nivasar, and the Mandovi, Zuari and Sharavati bridges, as sites fitted with anemometers, instruments that measure wind speed. The Guardian wrote in 2010 that the Panvalnadi bridge was then the highest viaduct in India. That was a 2010 statement, and a more recent ranking was not checked.

The corporation now works well beyond the coast. Two of our earlier pieces, on the railway to Kashmir and on the Chenab Bridge, cover Kashmir work in which Konkan Railway took part.

All of it electric since 2022

The foundation stone for electrifying the whole route was laid in November 2015, according to PIB. The Commissioner of Railway Safety inspected the work in six phases from March 2020, and the last section, Ratnagiri to Thivim, was inspected on 24 March 2022 and cleared on 28 March. PIB gives the project cost as Rs 1,287 crore. The Hans India gives Rs 1,267 crore.

The electrification went in five phases: Thokur to Bijoor, Bijoor to Karwar, Karwar to Thivim, Thivim to Ratnagiri, and Ratnagiri to Roha. On 20 June 2022 the Prime Minister dedicated the electrified line by flagging off electric trains from Udupi, Madgaon and Ratnagiri. PIB says it saves more than Rs 150 crore a year in fuel and cuts the unit cost of transport by 18 per cent. For the national picture, see our account of how Indian Railways electrified in a decade.

Riding it through the monsoon

The line runs through the Sahyadri hills, which the Hans India describes as dense forest, and the rains shape how it is run. The railway’s 2 June 2022 release says about 846 staff patrol the route in the monsoon, vulnerable spots are watched round the clock, and loco pilots are told to slow to 40 km/h in heavy rain when visibility is poor. The same release says there had been no major disruption from boulder falls in the previous nine years, which is the railway’s own statement. The monsoon timetable that year ran from 10 June to 31 October. More on the rains themselves is in our piece on the Western Ghats and the monsoon they steer.

Services are frequent. The chairman said in December 2025 that the corporation ran an average of 55 passenger and 17 freight trains a day in 2024 and 2025, plus festival and summer specials, and that Vande Bharat Express services now link Madgaon with Mumbai and with Mangaluru. In 2010 the Guardian singled out the Mandovi Express between Madgaon and Mumbai for its views. This article does not reproduce timetables or fares, which change; the 2022 release pointed passengers to the corporation’s website, its app and the 139 helpline.

Doubling and the merger question

According to the Free Press Journal’s report of 13 April 2026, citing a written Lok Sabha reply from the Minister of State for Railways, about 55 km has been doubled, on Roha to Veer and Madgaon to Majorda, and a detailed project report for about 263 km is being prepared. The report says the remaining 685 km needs significant investment before the route can be fully doubled. The Ministry has asked the states to contribute in proportion to their shareholding, and any merger with Indian Railways would need the consent of all of them. The Government of India holds 66.35 per cent of the corporation, the same report says.