Aizawl, Jan. 29 : The survey for the extension of the railway line on a metre gauge track from Bairabi village, the lone railhead in Mizoram, to Sairang, 20km from the state capital of Aizawl, that resumed last November is in full swing.
This was stated by Zasanga, the chairman of the state-level task force on the national railway project in Mizoram.
The retired IPS official, however, could not specify when the survey, in progress through the dense forests of the hill state, would be completed.
The survey on this proposed track by Rites, the Lucknow-based subsidiary of the Indian Railways, has been stalled several times since it began in 1997 for lack of funds and infrastructure hassles, senior officials in the project office of the Northeast Railway (construction) here said.
The project chairman lauded the “cooperation and help extended by the ordinary rural folk under Kolosib district”, to the engineers and other workers of Rites.
Bairabi is a commercial settlement located on Mizoram’s boundary with Assam’s Hailakandi district.
The metre gauge railway line was laid on a 50km track stretching from Badarpur railway junction in Karimganj district of Assam to Bairabi in the early nineties, opening a new route for ferrying the tribal state’s agricultural produce to Assam.
The railway line extension project in Mizoram will cost the central exchequer Rs 519.34 crore, NFR (construction) sources here said.
Some NGOs in Mizoram’s Kolosib district are, however, whipping up a public frenzy, alleging that the railway project will help the non-Mizos from Assam to settle down in the district by opening up business projects there.
Mizoram chief minister Lalthanhawla has, however, sought to dispel such misgivings.
According to the NFR (construction) sources here, this new railway line spanning 51km will have 16 tunnels.