The Indian Railways is planning on connecting the capital cities of North-eastern states to the primary rail network by the year 2023. The news was made public by Railway Board Chairman VK Yadav on Friday
“We are implementing a project to connect all the capitals of North-Eastern states. As of today, except for Sikkim, all North-Eastern states are connected to the rail network. The capitals of Assam, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh are already connected. In Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, and Meghalaya, capital connectivity work is in progress. Manipur will be connected in March 2022, Mizoram in March 2023, Nagaland in March 2023, Meghalaya in March 2022 and Sikkim in December 2022,” Yadav was quoted as saying in a virtual media meet.
“We are progressing at full speed, and by 2023 all these capitals in the North-Eastern states will be connected. These are very important railway projects which we have focused in the last five years,” he added.
While talking about the developments on the Katra-Banihal rail link project, which is expected to be completed by the end of 2022, Yadav mentioned that the project is quite a difficult one. However, the Indian railways are focused on connecting all the parts of Jammu & Kashmir to the rail network.
“This is a very difficult project and there are a lot of hardships in the last phase because it requires the construction of a large number of tunnels and bridges. Work on the last stretch of 111 kilometers from Katra to Banihal is in progress and the project is targeted to be completed by December 2022,” he said.