Siliguri: The upcoming new Indian Railways line under Sevoke Rangpo railway project is set to connect West Bengal to Sikkim soon, which is also one of the significant railway projects of the country.
This route connects to Sikkim which shares borders with China so it will be easier for the Indian soldiers to commute easily. It will also make travelling faster and easier for the Indian Soldiers at the nearby Nathula border.
The proposed Sevoke Rangpo railway project has been implemented by the North East Frontier Railway (NFR) zone along with IRCON International Limited, which was formerly Indian Railways Construction Company Limited.
The proposed project has several benefits as the northeast part of the area from Sevoke to Rangpo has a single road route which is not very smooth.
The route mostly shuts down in monsoons due to landslides, jams and many other reasons. This makes travelling very tough over this route. However, the Sevoke Rangpo rail line will come as the ultimate solution for regular passengers and tourists in this area.
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Announced on October 30, 2009, by then Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee, this strategic railway link had run into rough weather from the initial days.
Mired in land acquisition and environmental issues, matters ran up to the apex court and the clearances finally came four years back.
Then came the tough job of planning the construction in the highly seismic zone, which is also prone to heavy downpour. Finally, after 11 years of the announcement, work started for the first phase of the Sevoke-Rangpo-NathuLa railway link. But, like many other sectors, the project also beared the brunt of the Coronavirus induced lockdown.
Speaking to ETV Bharat, General Manager of IRCON, TD Bhutia said," The caves, rocks and seismic landscape were to be dealt with when the route was proposed. We had to rule out the heavy Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM). Instead, we had to adopt the New Australian Tunnel Boring (NATM) technique, which was successfully used in Jammu and Kashmir, a stretch under River Hooghly for the East-West Metro Railway network in Kolkata and also in the snow-capped regions of Switzerland. Though the area is under the seismic zone, yet the texture of rocks are quite solid. NATM is proving very effective here."
“Now our prime challenge is to get adequate skilled labour. The lockdown, Covid-19 scare and social distancing norms are throwing a spanner in the progress of work. We look up to skilled labourers who had worked in some of the hydel projects in Sikkim. They know the texture of the rocks by heart, the exact amount of explosives needed to blast off and open tunnel mouths and carry on with the work. This is where man meets machine and technology. Presently the availability of adequate skilled labour is proving to be a big headache for the project,” said Bhutia.
The project, under NFR agency, which is expected to be completed at a cost of over Rs 5,000 crore, runs for 45 kms. Of the total stretch, 41 kms is in West Bengal, traversing though dense reserve forests and elephant corridors. The undulating landscape, much of which also has hills, posed a major challenge to the planners.
After 11 years, the ambitious Sevoke-Rangpo-NathuLa railway project now hopes to tide over the pandemic hurdle.
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