Northeast Railway projects to get special status

The parliamentary standing committee on railways has proposed to grant a special status for railway projects in the northeastern states, extending to the region the facilities provided for rail works Jammu and Kashmir. The proposal was forwarded to the Prime Minister, committee chairman Basudeb Acharia said.

Some important railway works in Jammu and Kashmir and the northeast had earlier been declared as national projects. These include the Udhampur-Baramula line project in Jammu and Kashmir, Lumding-Badarpur-Kumarghat gauge conversion in Assam and Kumarghat-Agartala line in Tripura. "We have visited some important railway project sites in the northeast aiming to expedite such works," Acharia said. The standing committee would also propose construction of a railway line up to south Tripura's bordering sub-division Sabroom. He said Agartala would be the second capital city in the northeast after Guwahati to come up on the railway map by next year.

Tripura now has a 66-km railway line with Assam and it has extended up to Manu in Dhalai district. "Laying of the Manu-Agartala (109 km) railway line, which was scheduled to be completed by March 2007, has been delayed by a few months due to technical problems, specially tunnel construction related difficulties," he said. The project cost was estimated at Rs.7 billion while Rs.5.40 billion has already been spent so far. More than 75 percent works of the total project had been completed. "All the capital cities of the northeast are to be connected by rail by 2011," he said.

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