Railway compensation dispute resolved

KATHMANDU, August 19: As the railway compensation dispute is over, locals believe that the work of Bardibas-Janakpur-Jayanagar and East-West railway service expansion will now move forward. The district level Land Compensation Determination Committee (CDC) fixed the price of the land proposed by the Bardibas Railway on Wednesday, resolving the ongoing dispute.

Tirtha Raj Bhattarai, chief district officer and chairman of the Land Compensation determination Committee, said, “The seven year old dispute has now been resolved. We have finalized the price with all stakeholder’s consultation.” “We will soon release the information regarding the compensation. Also, by mid-September, we will start providing compensation to the landowners as well,” he added.

On Wednesday evening, the committee finalized the price of the proposed 59 bighas of land that falls between Ratu River in the east and Bhavsi River in the west for the railway of Wards No.1 and 14 of the erstwhile Bardibas VDC area. According to Bhattarai, the minimum value of the land has been fixed from Rs 700,000 to Rs 8.1 million.

Bharat Bahadur Hamal, ward chairman of Bardibas-14, believes that with the end of the dispute, the expansion work will pick up speed. After the landowners started their agitation demanding fair prices for their land, the construction work of the railway track could not start earlier. Also, out of 69 km distance of Jayanagar-Bardibas railway project, the work of railway track and bridge from Jayanagar to Bijalpura (Bhangaha) has been completed.

The price of the land within a distance of 18 km from Bhangaha to Bardibas was finalized last year. Bidur Kumar Karki, mayor of Bardibas, said that since the compensation of the former Bardibas VDC was fixed, there is no problem in the VDC now. He is also confident that as soon as the compensation for the land in Mithila Municipality of Dhanusha is fixed, the overall work of railway expansion will accelerate.

Out of the total distance of 69 km of Jayanagar-Bardibas railway, the first section is 34 km from Jayanagar to Kurtha, the second section is 17 km from Kurtha to Vijalpura station in Bhangaha Municipality-5 of Mahottari and the third section is 18 km from Vijalpura to Bardibas of Mahottari. The work of the first section is already completed whereas that of the second section is in the testing phase. Nepal Railway Company Limited stated that they have scheduled to start the service in the first and second sections and work on the third section will start soon.

Jayanagar-Janakpur-Vijalpura railway service was in operation two decades ago. Unfortunately, the train service was closed after the flood of 2002 destroyed the Bighi Bridge of Loharpatti Municipality. The old small track there has been replaced by a broad gauge track. The local people believe that the current train service will be convenient and fast.

At present, the train that is set to run from Kurtha to Jayanagar, a border town of India, has been parked at Inarwa station in Dhanusha. The Department of Railways has stated that with the management of technically-skilled and administrative manpower, the train is now to come into operation. The upgrading of the Jayanagar-Janakpur-Bardibas railway line, which started in 2014 under an agreement with the Government of India with a grant assistance of Rs 7.20 billion, was scheduled to be completed in 2019. However, the Railway Department has admitted that the completion of the project was delayed due to the Madhesh movement, natural calamities (earthquake and flood) and land compensation process.