Five years on, Kangra rail line upgrade hangs fire

Ravinder Sood

Palampur, December 23

The conversion of the strategic Kangra valley rail line into broad gauge has been hanging fire for the past five years. The Union Railway Ministry has already prepared a detailed project report to this effect but the Centre is yet to approve it. There is a proposal to link this rail line to the under-construction Bhanupali-Bilaspur-Leh line in Mandi.

During a visit to the Kangra valley, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised the residents of the district that this narrow gauge rail line would be upgraded to broad gauge linking Pathankot to Leh via Manali. However, in the past five years, even the land acquisition process has not been started.

At present, this railway line is in a bad shape. Most of its infrastructure is obsolete and has outlived its life. The condition of the track has worsened.

During the rainy season this year, train services were suspended following the collapse of pillars of the Chakki rail bridge, which are yet to be repaired.

The British had laid this 120-km rail track in 1932, linking all important and religious towns of Kangra and parts of Mandi district. In the past 90 years, the Indian Railways has not upgraded it. Several plans were drawn to convert this narrow gauge line into a broad gauge line, but all remained on paper.

In 2003, the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had planned to link Pathankot to Leh via Manali keeping in view the defence requirements of the country. In fact, after the Kargil War of 1999, the Union Government had realised its importance and decided to develop a rail route to Leh via Manali; this route is considered safest and beyond the firing range of Pakistan.

A senior officer of the Indian Railways told The Tribune that like the Shimla–Kalka railway line, there was a proposal to get the 90-year-old Kangra valley rail line declared as a world heritage site by UNESCO. The matter was pending with the Railway Ministry and therefore its conversion into broad gauge had been delayed.

Shanta Kumar, former CM, has said the Centre should declare the Kangra rail line as a “national project” on a par with railway projects being executed in the Northeast and Kashmir. “The Vajpayee government had planned to link Pathankot to Leh via the Kangra valley and a project report was also prepared. However, no headway was made thereafter,” he added.

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