According to Ram Kumar Lamsal, director general of the recently formed Department of Railways (DoR), the rail service which has served as the only mode of public transportation for people of over 20 villages east of Janakpur, the 85-year-old service may come to a standstill when the task of upgrading the existing narrow gauge begins. [break]
"We can not overhaul the entire railway line without shutting down the service for some time. We will replace the old narrow gauge with broad gauge along the existing track in these two years,” said Lamsal. This means that thousands of people from villages, who need to come to Janakpur for administrative works, will be deprived of their only means of transportation for some time. "We hope that the villagers will put up with the halt of service for the sake of development," Lamsal said.
The rail service, developed by the British government in 1997 BS, apparently for ferrying Nepal´s precious timbers to India, is all set to come under the purview of the newly formed DoR. The Ministry of Labor and Transport Management (MoLTM) is preparing to table a proposal in the cabinet to handover the railway service to the DoR, which is currently under the Ministry of Physical Planning and Works (MoPPW).
No huge budget for old service
Janakpur Railway Company (JRC), which operates the Janakpur-Jayanagar train, had recently sought Rs 1.34 billion from the government to revive the decrepit rail service.
"Although the expansion of the existing gauge is in the offing, we can not halt the rail service abruptly and deprive villagers of their only means of transportation," Suresh Prasad Yadav, general manager of the JRC said. "We need this money to keep the rail service functional until the expansion of the existing narrow gauge is completed."
However, the DoR sees putting in huge investment in the maintenance of the decade old rail service as ´a waste of money´.
"The existing track of Janakpur-Jayanagar rail service is obsolete. Today, no railway track is as narrow as this (762 mm) anywhere in the world. Once we finish laying a 1476 mm-broad track, the existing engines, bogies and slippers will be of no use," Lamsal said. "Therefore, if we spend such a huge amount of money as sought by JRC for repairing the existing rail system, it will prove absolutely worthless."
Tek Raj Bohara, an engineer with the DoR, says, "Except for a very few equipments, only the land used by the JRC for its office-buildings and rail-track will be of some use. Almost all engines, bogies and slippers in the existing service will be of no use after the old narrow gauge is widened."
The process of acquiring land required for expanding the existing narrow gauge has already begun.
Of the complete railway line developed in 1997 BS, only 29 km stretch, from Jayanagar to Janakpur, is suitable for plying. According to Anil Gurung, under secretary at the MoLTM, some 22 km stretch of the track, from Janakpur to Bijulpura, was seriously damaged by floods in 2001. "We have decided to extend the new broad gauge line up to Bardibas," Gurung said.
The government of India has pledged support to widen and extend the existing track, and install modern engines and bogies for the revamped railway system that will run along Jayanagar-Bardibas route.
According to Gurung, IRCON International Limited, an undertaking of the Indian government has bagged the railway development project. "The IRCON will start work soon after we hand over the acquired land to them," Gurung said.
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