Several rail projects yet to take off in State

Several rail projects yet to take off in State

The reservations expressed by Uttarakhand Chief Minister Bhuvan Chandra Khanduri about actual operations of the Rishikesh-Karnprayag Rail Line, the foundation stone for which was laid by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi with much fanfare last week, are not without basis.

There are several other rail line projects in the State which have gone off-track after laying of foundation stones and surveys in the past decade.

At the time of the inauguration of this project, the people of the Himalayan State saw a similar ceremony for the Karnprayag project performed way back in 1997 at Rishikesh, when present Pauri MP Satpal Maharaj was MoS Railway.

On the other hand, for the past few years, Kumaon region has been resorting to agitation, with persistent demand to start construction work on the 154-km Bageshwar-Tanakpur rail line. As per 2007 estimates, the cost of this rail project was Rs2,371 crore and now it is projected to be around Rs5,000 crore, considering the rising costs of constructions and engineering materials.

The most significant project for economic development of the State, the 154-km Tanakpur-Bageshwar Railway line, whose survey has already been done by the Railway Ministry, is also pending for long.

According to Khanduri, he himself had asserted and raised the issue related to rail project umpteen number of time when he was member of the Lok Sabha in 1990s. “Our colleague Bhagat Singh Koshiyari (former chief minister) also made lot of efforts for early sanction of the project as chairman of petition committee of Parliament but efforts proved to be futile,” Gen Khanduri told The Pioneer.

The State also shares international borders and thus it was felt all the more necessary to have proper rail connectivity in the Himalayan state. Rail connectivity which were planned for various destinations from stations other than Dehradun and Kathgodam, starting of rail services between Rishikesh and Karnprayag, Tanakpur and Bageshwar, Dehradun and Kalsi, Ramnagar and Chaukhutiya along with Kicha and Khatima is also in suspended animation.

Work on building railway over bridges at Lacchiwala, Laksar, Kashipur and Motichur was expedited only after several rounds of deliberations as these are places where elephants are often on the move but then it also fell into the trap of red-tapism. While the Nainital, Ranikhet, Kausani and Dudhwa falls under the North Eastern Railway Zone, rest of the State is served by the Northern Railways.

The sanction for the long-pending Rishikesh-Karanprayag project was given by the Railway Board after it got the status of National Project, with all the funding to be done under the auspice of the Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs (CCEA). The proposed line would run parallel to the flow of Ganga and will traverse through the districts of Dehradun, Tehri, Rudraprayag and Chamoli.

Interestingly, the first survey for the Rishikesh-Karanprayag rail line was done in 1919 on the initiative of then Deputy Commissioner of Garhwal JM Clay. The second survey was done in 1996 and the project was not found financially viable. In 2009, the Railway Ministry rejected the project again on the same ground. “After that, the Union Government decided to take up the line’s construction as a National Project, considering its importance strategically and for the region’s socio-economic development. The project is likely to be completed by 2019,” said a Ministry official.