The story so far: On August 15, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced from the ramparts of the Red Fort that the capitals of the northeastern States would soon be connected by railway. The revised target for completing the projects is 2026, which may not be realistic given the combination of tough terrain, weather-dictated slowdown and ethnic and political unrest.
How many States in the northeast are connected by rail?
The northeast comprises eight States. All barring Sikkim are connected by railway but only two State capitals are on the railway grid — Guwahati (the official Dispur is a small part of the city) in Assam and Agartala in Tripura. In the case of Arunachal Pradesh, the railway track terminates at Naharlagun, about 13 km short of capital Itanagar.
Nagaland’s commercial hub Dimapur is a major railway station 75 km downhill of capital Kohima by road while a track each terminates just between the Assam-Manipur, Assam-Meghalaya and Assam-Mizoram border.
Railway service in Manipur is up to Jiribam, about 200 km by road from capital Imphal.
Similarly, the service in Meghalaya is up to Mendipathar, about 225 km from capital Shillong by road; in Mizoram, it is up to Bairabi, about 112 km by road from capital Aizawl; in Nagaland, it is up to Zubza, about 18 km from capital Kohima; and in Sikkim, it is up to Rangpo, about 38 km by road from capital Gangtok.
What are the projects?
The estimated cost of the “capital connect” projects is ₹30,136.6 crore. Work on four of these is in progress.
They are the 110.63-km Jiribam-Tupul (55 km short of Imphal) in Manipur with a sanctioned cost of ₹12,264.15 crore, the 21.5-km Tetelia-Byrnihat project linking Assam and Meghalaya worth ₹1,105 crore, the 51.38-km Bairabi-Sairang (18 km short of Aizawl) in Mizoram worth ₹5,021.45 crore, the 82.5-km Dimapur-Zubza worth ₹6,911 crore, the 44.96-km Sivok-Rangpo worth ₹4,085 crore with Sivok in West Bengal and Rangpo in Sikkim.
Another project not linking any capital is the ₹750-crore track linking Murkongselek in Assam and Pasighat in central Arunachal Pradesh.
What is the status of these projects?
The project that has progressed the most is Jiribam-Tupul. The construction wing of the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) has completed 91% of this project expected to be over by December 2023. The Bairabi-Sairang project follows with 79%, Tetelia-Byrnihat with 65%, Dimapur-Zubza with 30% and Sivok-Rangpo with 25%. These projects have an expected time of completion by March 2024, March 2023, March 2026 and March 2023 respectively.
The Tetelia-Byrnihat project awaits the nod of the Meghalaya government for completing only 2.25 km of the track in the State while the Murkongselek-Pasighat project is yet to take off.
What are the challenges?
The terrain — landslip-prone hills and sinking areas — is the toughest of challenges for the NFR followed by a long rainy period causing flood and erosion.
Skirting protected areas and wildlife habitats is another hurdle, as are ethnic and political conflicts such as the Assam-Mizoram border row that led to miscreants uprooting a stretch of the lone railway track linking southern Assam’s Silchar with Mizoram’s Bairabi.
Work on the railway line to Meghalaya’s Byrnihat, about 75 km downhill of Shillong, has been stalled for a few years. This is because the State’s pressure groups feel passenger train service will bring in “unwanted migrants” until there is a robust system to monitor their movement is in place.
Most of the projects in the hill States entail a number of tunnels and bridges.
The Jiribam-Tutul project has 47 tunnels, the longest being 10.28 km and 148 bridges including India’s tallest railway pier bridge equivalent to a 33-storey building. About 86% of the Sivok-Rangpo project will go through 14 tunnels and over 19 bridges. The Bairabi-Sairang project has 142 bridges, six road under-bridges and several tunnels with a length of 12,936.20 km.
The Dimapur-Zubza project has several bridges and tunnels too.
How long do trains take to run between Guwahati and other NE State capitals?
Guwahati is the hub of air, road and railway connectivity in the northeast. Although regular services have been disrupted due to COVID-19, there are direct trains between Guwahati and some of the capitals or railheads of the other north-eastern States.
The fastest train between Guwahati and Agartala takes almost 14 hours. An express train between Guwahati and Naharlagun (Itanagar) takes about six hours while the fastest train completes the Guwahati-Dimapur stretch in five hours.
Jiribam and Bairabi do not have direct trains from Guwahati. These railheads can be reached by passenger trains from southern Assam’s Silchar town in about two hours (Jiribam) and four hours (Bairabi).
For travelling to Sikkim from Guwahati, one has to take a nine-hour trip by train to New Jalpaiguri in West Bengal for onward travel.
