GUWAHATI, Sept 18 - Railway track electrification till Guwahati will be completed by 2020 and electrification work of all non-electrified sections in the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) zone will also be carried out in a phased manner.
�Consequent upon the approval given by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) during its meeting recently, all previously sanctioned works of electrification of railway track have got the required thrust. At present the Indian Railways has about 13,675 km of non-electrified broad gauge railway tracks. Out of that, 2,536 km falls under NFR. Presently, the only electrified portion of NFR is between Katihar and Malda Court stations via Kumedpur. Electrification work of the balance portion of non-electrified tracks has been segregated into different segments and targeted for completion in a phased manner,� Pranav Jyoti Sharma, Chief Public Relations Officer of NFR, said today.
He added that electrification work till Guwahati will be completed by 2020.
In the NFR zone, work has been distributed to two agencies � Centre for Railway Electrification (CORE) and Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL) � for carrying out electrification.
RVNL has been entrusted for completing the Raninagar Jalpaiguri to Guwahati via Rangiya portion (382 km), while the New Bongaigaon to Kamakhya via Goalpara (175 km) and Guwahati to Dibrugarh via Lumding (661 km) will be implemented by CORE.
�Contracts have already been awarded and work is in various stages of progress in all these portions. Lumding-Badarpur (172 km), Badarpur-Karimganj-Agartala-Sabroom-Akhaura, including all branch lines to Silchar, Jiribam, Bhairabi, Dullabcherra and Mahishasan (590 km) have also been sanctioned and will be implemented by CORE,� Sharma said.
Other branch lines like Coochbehar-Golokganj-Dhubri, Rangiya-Rangapara-Harmuti-Naharlagun, Chaparmukh-Silghat, Mariani-Furkating via Jorhat, and Tinsukia-Makum-Tirap have also received the required sanction for electrification.
�The present sanctioned cost of the entire work is Rs 4,435 crore,� the NFR CPRO said.
