Railways to connect all northeastern state capitals by 2020


Posted on 17th Mar 2015 11:31 am by mohit kumar

Silchar (Assam), March 16 (IANS) The Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR), which is building rail infrastructure in the region, has targeted to connect all its eight state capitals by 2020, a senior official has said.

"We would connect all the state capitals of the eight northeastern states by railway link within 2020," NFR general manager (construction) Rakesh Kumar Singh told reporters here.

He said: "Mizoram capital Aizawl and Manipur capital Imphal would be connected by railway network by 2018 and 2019 respectively. The capitals of the remaining states would be linked by 2020 and the works are on to achieve the target."

Tripura's capital Agartala already connected by railway networks, even though line between Assam's Silchar-Agartala is meter gauge.

Agartala came up on the country's rail map in 2008. Currently, northeastern states have around 2,700 km railway line comprising meter gauge and broad gauge (BG) lines, officials said.

Singh, who was leading a 45-member NFR team, arrived in Silchar railway station from Guwahati on Sunday afternoon with the first nine-bogie railway trial inspection train, which left for Guwahati on Monday.

On Friday, the team said it successfully carried out trial run of a diesel engine from Lumding to Silchar on the newly-converted broad gauge (BG) line. The regular train service on the new BG line would be conducted from April after the clearance of Railway Safety Commissioner.

The total length of Lumding-Silchar BG line is 220 km and it consists of 17 tunnels (with longest one being 3.235 km long), 79 major bridges, 340 minor bridges, 28 railway stations and four halt stations.

The NFR general manager (construction) said now the Silchar-Agartala railway track would be converted from meter gauge to BG by March next year.

The foundation of the much-delayed gauge conversion project -- Lumding to Silchar and Silchar to Agartala -- was laid by the then prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda in Silchar in 1996.

In 2004, the then prime minister Manmohan Singh declared the project a national one.

The railways faced severe criticism for the delay in completing the Rs.5,185-crore project that is considered to be a lifeline for southern Assam, Tripura, Mizoram and Manipur.

Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu, during his budget speech in the parliament on February 26, said the Indian Railways was committed to provide rail connectivity to all the northeastern states.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Nov 29, 2014 flagged off a train between Meghalaya's Mendipathar and Guwahati, a distance of 131 km, and laid the foundation stone for a 51.38 km-long new broad gauge railway line between Bhairabi and Sairang in Mizoram.

On February 20, Modi flag off the first weekly air-conditioned express train service between Delhi and Arunachal Pradesh in Itanagar.



 

Did you know?Explore Trending and Topic pages for more stories like this.
0 Like 0 Dislike
Previous news Next news
Other news

Tirupati Prasad Controversy: 'Sanatan Dharma Raksha Board' should be formed at the national level, Pawan Kalyan raised an important demand

Amidst the ongoing controversy over Prasad in Tirupati Balaji temple, Andhra Pradesh Deputy CM an

Maharashtra had the highest number of 6185 cases for the second consecutive day, with a decrease in new cases in Delhi and Kerala.

Maharashtra is again raising concern in new cases of Corona. Most patients are getting here for t

Joshimath Crisis: The situation became more dangerous, crack was marked in 14 new buildings in 24 hours, and 10 families shifted

Joshimath Crisis: Cracks continue to grow in houses in disaster-hit Joshimath. Cracks were identi

Corona Cases In India: How dangerous is the corona in the second wave, know the answers to the questions related to it

New Delhi

The situation with the coronavirus in the country is getting worse. This can be

A special conversation with the producer of 'KGF-2': Vijay Kiragandur told - The film was shot in a dangerous place like the Cyanide area, where it took 30 to 40 days to build a set

The trailer of South superstar Yash's most awaited film 'KGF-2' has been released a day ago (Marc

US Sanctions on China: America's chip ban on China hit Taiwan hard

Taiwan has been hit hard by the US trade war against China. According to the latest released data

Bhushan, Yadav accuse Kejriwal of "horse trading"

New Delhi, March 27 (IANS) AAP leaders Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav on Friday accused th

IPL 2022: This may be Kolkata's playing XI in front of Hyderabad, these two players can get a chance

In front of the Hyderabad team, Kolkata will try to rectify the mistakes made in the previous mat

Fear of information leaking to army, told jawans - delete apps like Facebook, Instagram and Tiktok

New Delhi. The army has banned the use of 89 apps for soldiers and officers. News agency ANI quot

'Until our problems are not resolved, every help is useless', Shehbaz Sharif said on the plight of Pakistan

Pakistan is facing a financial crisis these days. The situation is such that there is a continuou

Sign up to write
Sign up now if you have flare of writing..
Login   |   Register
Follow Us
Indyaspeak @ Facebook Indyaspeak @ Twitter Indyaspeak @ Pinterest RSS



Play Free Quiz and Win Cash