Morung Express News
Dimapur | February 26
Union Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal on Tuesday announced the proposed Dimapur-Tizit railway line as among the 22 projects of new lines to be taken up on “socio-economic consideration” despite what he termed as “resource crunch” faced by the Indian Railways. According to information available with The Morung Express, the initial field verification, alignment designing work, estimation and pillaring work have been completed. The Dimapur-Tizit line was first announced a few years ago when Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress was the Railway Minister.
According to the preliminary engineering cum traffic survey for the new BG line from Dimapur to Tizit, the distance is approx 195.0 Km. The proposed line will travel through the foothills of Dimapur and then pass through the districts of Wokha, Mokokchung and finally Mon. If the project goes according to plan, it will boost travel and bring economic and trade benefits to the people residing along the routes in particular and Nagaland state in general.
However, the good news about the Union Railway Ministry taking up the Dimapur-Tizit railway line notwithstanding, today’s Budget failed to make any mention of the much talked about Dimapur-Zubza railway line. The latter has been in the pipeline for many years now without making much headway—perhaps stalled by the wrangling over land compensation. One will have to wait and watch how the new State government in Nagaland can facilitate the smooth takeoff and early completion of this project being offered to the State.
In contrast, the Union Railway Minister expressed happiness while informing that works on the new line railway project to connect Manipur state are in full swing. The Ministry is also fast tracking the gauge conversion works on Lumding-Silchar and Rangia-Murkongselek. It was also informed that for the first time the State of Arunachal Pradesh has been brought into the rail network. The Minister informed that the Ministry will commission the Harmuti-Naharlagun line this year itself.
