GUWAHATI: The Centre, on Thursday last, announced an investment of over Rs 5,000 crores to construct a 12-km-long elevated railway corridor inside Guwahati.
Last year the same was announced in the union budget and accordingly the survey was started this year.
In 2016, G Plus reported that Guwahatians waste around 18 hours a day after which the Centre announced the proposal of the elevated railway tracks.
Guwahati is set to get a facelift on its railway track routes as the ministry of railways is expected to start the work for elevated railway tracks in Guwahati soon after the final location survey is completed.
Chief Public Relation Officer (CPRO) of Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR), Pranav Jyoti Sharma said, “We are presently undertaking the final location survey which started 2 months back and will be completed in one year.”
Sharma also said that as soon as the survey is completed, a tender will be floated for execution of the work.
So the survey will be completed next year which will provide exact calculations about what should be the height, breadth and alignments of the elevated sections of the railway tracks.
Consequently, all the level crossings in Guwahati will be eliminated with the elevated railway track running from New Guwahati station to Kamakhya Station.
TVUs (Train Vehicular Unit) of all the city railway level crossings suggest that the crossings have, since long, required road over-bridges/underpasses to eliminate traffic congestion in the relevant areas but the state government had not bothered to take any action. The point to be noted here is that after ten year of construction of the tracks, such over bridges require 50% investment from the state government.
In this case however, the elevated tracks will be completely funded by the railways and the state government will not have to spend anything, revealed a source in NF Railway.
Construction of the elevated tracks connecting Kamakhya and New Guwahati would decongest city roads, free up railway land and enable railways to develop Guwahati station as a commercial hub.
The new project would keep provisions for connectivity with the proposed metro. The final location survey is expected to also establish links with the proposed metro rail planned by the state government.
TVUs of all the city railway crossings demand that there should be elevated tracks but the Centre and the state did not work on the issue for the last 10 years. The proposal was finally announced in 2016. Yet, the pace of work seems slow as even though the project was announced in last year’s budget, the location survey started just two months ago.
Guwahati railway station to be decongested
The Guwahati railway station had been the premier station from where trains originated in the northeast. But the Northeast Frontier Railways (NFR) is planning to decongest the station and also the other stations located within Guwahati.
Chief Public Relation Officer (CPRO), NFR, Pranav Jyoti Sharma said, “Every train, after reaching a destination, has to be maintained for 7 hours which is the duration taken for the trains to be cleaned and maintained.”
Because Guwahati Railway Station was a train originating station, there are many pit-lines. Pit-lines are the facilities with which trains are stationed and maintained.
All the pit-lines are now getting transferred to New Guwahati. The railways are further also constructing many more pit-lines in New Guwahati with the aim to decongest Guwahati station.
“The trains that will be originating from Guwahati will not be stationed in Guwahati for maintenance but at New Guwahati,” said Sharma.
Talking about New Guwahati station, it is more used as a loading/unloading area. Lot of consumer goods which come for the northeast get loaded and unloaded at New Guwahati because of which there is congestion in Guwahati. Loaded trucks keep plying across Guwahati from New Guwahati station.
To decongest the city, NF Railway is converting the Azara and Changsari stations into loading and unloading points.
All the automobiles freighted to the northeast get unloaded at Changsari these days whereas other consumer goods get loaded/unloaded at Azara. The move has resulted in decongesting Guwahati and New Guwahati Railway station to a fair extent.
To further decongest Guwahati, many trains going to westward are originating at Kamakhya Station, Puri Express is a case in point.
After the elevated tracks are constructed, even New Guwahati will be converted into a passenger train originating station and east bound trains will originate there, a source in NFR said.
Further with the construction of more pit-lines at New Guwahati, Guwahati Railway station is expected to be congestion-free.