Railway Budget has little for state

Lalit Mohan

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, February 26

Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu’s Budget had little to offer to Himachal.

In the last Budget, a survey for two more railway lines, including Una-Hamirpur and Una-Amb-Indora, was announced by the Railway Minister. However, this year these railway lines had not found any mention in the Budget.

The construction of the broad gauge railway line from Bhanupali in Punjab to Bilaspur in Himachal has been a long-pending demand of cement companies.

Earlier, cement companies had also proposed to contribute 25 per cent of the total project cost of the Bhanupali-Bilaspur railway line. The work on the project started during the stint of the previous UPA government, but was shelved later. It is yet to start again.

The work on Una-Amb-Talwara broad gauge railway line has been going on for two decades now. It is the only broad gauge railway line in the state. The work on the project was started in 1996 and it was expected to be completed by 2008 at a project cost of about Rs 210 crore. However, in the past two decades the broad gauge railway line has reached till Amb so far and its cost has gone up many times. More than 50 km track from Amb to Talwara is yet to be constructed.

In case the project was completed till Talwara, it would have been connected to Mukerian as an old broad gauge railway already connects Talwara with Mukerian. This would have linked Himachal with Jammu-Delhi track and a few more trains could transverse through the state.

Last year the Union Government allocated Rs 28 crore for the Una-Amb-Talwara railway line.

The MPs from Himachal, including Shanta Kumar and Anurag Thakur, have been demanding that the broad gauge railway line be extended further into Himachal areas. Shanta Kumar had raised a demand that Una-Amb-Talwara railway line be extended to Jwalamukhi so that it connects the narrow gauge railway line already operating from Pathankot to Jogindernagar.

Anurag had proposed linking Amb broad gauge to Hamirpur. However, this year’s railway Budget has no mention of these projects.

During the last Lok Sabha elections, the construction of Pathankot-Manali-Leh railway line railway remained an election issue in Himachal. BJP MP from Kangra Shanta Kumar has been maintaining that the Union Ministry for Railways has in principal granted approval to the Pathankot-Manali Leh railway line project. However, the project has not found any mention in the Budget released today.

The only hope of the people of Himachal could have was that the Pathankot-Jogindernagar narrow gauge railway track will be improved.