A team of Southern Railway officials and engineers conducted a land survey and checked land availability for laying a new railway line between Rameswaram and Dhanushkodi, the pilgrim town in the southeastern tip that was ravaged by the 1964 cyclonic storm.
The ₹208-crore rail project is all set to take off after Prime Minister Narendra Modi lays the foundation stone on January 27 in Madurai. He will also lay the foundation stone for the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) campus in Thoppur.
The once flourishing town got a road link more than five decades after a cyclone ravaged the town. The road was inaugurated by Mr. Modi on July 27, 2017. The town and land strip considered ‘Aathi Sethu’ (arrowhead) is all set to regain its lost glory as the Railways have decided to provide rail connectivity.
Ahead of the foundation stone laying ceremony, officials led by L. Sudhakar Rao, chief administrative officer (construction) inspected the 17.2-km-long stretch from Rameswaram to Dhanushkodi and explored the alignment of the proposed railway line.
“We have decided to stick to the old railway line alignment and the proposed line would come parallel to the existing newly laid road,” Mr. Rao told The Hindu . Work will begin soon after the Prime Minister lays the foundation stone and it will be completed within a period of two-and-a-half years.
A yard with passenger amenities would be built at Dhanushkodi, Mr. Rao added. Acquiring lands for the project would not be a problem, he said. He was accompanied by Sumeet Singhal, chief engineer (constructions), Balakrishnan, deputy chief engineer and R.K. Kannan, executive engineer from the Madurai division, among others.
Dhanushkodi became a desolate stretch and was declared a ghost town after the cyclonic storm almost wiped out the land strip and destroyed the rail link on the night of December 22, 1964.
