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| Silchar railway station. File picture |
Silchar, July 8: The 110-year-old railway station here is expected to be shifted to a nearby site to avoid possible congestion after the completion of the Silchar-Lumding broad-gauge track.
According to the construction calendar prepared by the NF Railway (construction) recently, the track is to be commissioned by June next year.
The district administration suggested to the NF Railway authorities in a letter on July 1 that they should shift the station here to Srikona rail station, nearly 7km from here.
The district’s deputy commissioner, G.M. Hazarika, asked the railway authorities in Lumding and Maligaon to consider his proposal in the light of the possible rush of heavy passenger and goods traffic along this route.
The traffic is likely to increase after the gauge conversion by May or June next year.
Additional district deputy commissioner A. Bhattacharjee has been asked to scout for land in Srikona village near the Hindustan Paper Corporation (HPC) in Panchgram, 25km from here.
The district administration fears heavy congestion of traffic on the Tarapur road here.
However, the proposal of shifting of the local railway terminus to Srikona, along with an overbridge at a railway crossing gate there, may take another three to four years.
The Silchar railway station will continue to be used for the local trains to the district headquarters towns of Karimganj and Hailakandi and also to Badarpur.
The conversion of the track into a broad-gauge one got off to a flying start in 1998.
However, because of paucity of funds and insurgency, there has been a delay in its completion.
The work was scheduled to be over by 2006.
This 201km broad-gauge track between Silchar and Lumding would now cost Rs 4,500 crore instead of Rs 648 crorewith a total of 31 stations and will negotiate 20 tunnels now instead of the initially planned 37.
It will go up to a maximum speed of nearly 75km an hour, making the journey from here to Guwahati in a comfortable time span of eight to nine hours.
