Railway Board’s debacle on the Kashmir Rail Link

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It is high time the Govt of India took note of Railway Board’s abysmal engineering fiasco of 18 years in its attempts to build the 110 km long strategic Kashmir rail link

Alok Kumar Verma, IRSE (Rtd)

Railway Board’s debacle on the Kashmir Rail Link and 6 other new rail line projects in the Himalayas. With the tense military situation across India’s Himalayan border, it is time the Government of India took note of Railway Board’s abysmal engineering fiasco of 18 years in its attempts to build the 110 km long strategic Kashmir rail link (Katra to Banihal).

Five years ago, the Expert Committee headed by E. Sreedharan had strongly recommended that the technically flawed alignment on the landslide-prone steep slopes of the Himalayan terrain should be given up and the alternative alignment which I had prepared should be adopted.

However, Railway Board dismissed the Committee’s unanimous recommendation, and claimed that it would be able to complete construction in 3 years.

But, 5 years have since gone by and Railway has barely done half of the construction.

Sreedharan Committee had said that it would cost less to build a double line on my alignment than what it would take to complete a single line on which Railway Board had by then spent Rs 6,000 crore.

If the Govt would carefully look into the progress of construction on the project, it would find that if the project goes on like it has so far, it would probably take 7 to 10 more years to complete construction.

Further, the completion cost of the project would be sky high, it’s capacity to carry trains very low, and expenditure on operation and maintenance (including security of the line) would be extremely high.

Please read my post in the link above about how alignment with unusually flat gradient of 1 in 100 was adopted for the project in 2000-02 on the basis of a carelessly done survey and feasible study.

But, Railway Board seems determined not to acknowledge its repeated blunders on this National Project.

The blunders were in fact highlighted (even before the report by the Sreedharan Committee) in 2 judgments of Delhi HC, and a report by CAG, which was also endorsed by the PAC.

This issue is important also because Railway Board approved similar alignments for 6 other projects in Himalayas (1 in Uttarakhand and 5 in the North East states)

Progress of construction on these 6 projects is still worse, with aggregate progress of construction about 10 to 15% only.

The Government of India should have it thoroughly examined whether it is desirable to allow construction to proceed on these 7 projects in Himalayas or the alignment of each of the project should be changed with new alignments based on the worldwide proven practice of adopting steeper gradients for building lines in difficult mountainous terrain that are prone to landslides and earthquakes.

It is worth remembering that China built the 1142 km long Golmud-Lhasa line in permafrost of Tibet Plateau in just 5 years (2001-2006). This line has since been extended to the foot of the Himalayas, and China is now carrying out survey and feasibility studies to carry this line across the Himalayan range from Shigatse to Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal.

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#Kashmir_rail_link #Railways
#railways_in_himalayas