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Monday, April 7, 2014

NEW TRAIN TO NAHARLAGUN

History was made o­n date with Itanagar – the capital of Arunachal Pradesh – coming o­n the Railway Map of India. The first daily passenger train service o­n the Harmuti – Naharlagun (Itanagar) Broad Gauge section under Rangiya Division of N. F. Railway started with a pair of passenger trains (No. 55613 / 55614) between Dekargaon and Naharlagun this morning. As train number 55613 Up started from the newly-opened Dekargaon (Tezpur) station at 7.00 A.M. today, a new vista o­n rail map of India was opened. The train reached Naharlagun, about 13 kilometres into Arunachal Pradesh in Lower Subansiri district, at 12.30 P.M.bringing the state into Indian Railway map. o­n the return journey, train number 55614 will leave Naharlagun at 01.30 P.M. to reach Dekargaon at 7.15 P.M.

Before this, Arunachal Pradesh had o­nly 1.26 km railway line inside its border with the o­nly station being Bhalukpong in East Kameng district. In line with Railway’s goal of providing connectivity to all state capitals of the northeastern region, a survey was conducted in 1997 for a new line from Harmuti to Itanagar and the project was sanctioned in 1996-97 Railway Budget as a Metre Gauge line. The approval of the state government was received in 2006, but the alignment had to be changed in 2010 o­n the request of the state government and finally the line was taken up as a Broad Gauge line from Harmuti to Naharlagun (9 km in Assam+12.75 km in Arunachal Pradesh = 21.75 km).

The line from Harmuti traverses 6 kms in Lakhimpur District of Assam before entering Lower Subansiri and runs along the left bank of river Dikong for about 7 km up to Doimukh before crossing the river. The approximate cost of construction of the line was `406 crores. There 46 minor bridges and 11 major bridges o­n the line.