The railways is set to link allthe capital's of northeastern states by March 2022 by linking Sikkim's capitalGangtok, according to an official of the railways.
The official said that all theseven northeastern state capitals will be connected to the national railwaywith this linkage. He further said that the capitals of Assam, ArunachalPradesh and Tripura have already been connected by broad gauge rail network.
According to reports, work onthe new broad gauge lines has been taken up to connect the other state capitalsof Meghalaya (Shillong), Manipur (Imphal), Nagaland (Kohima), Mizoram (Aizawl)which is expected to be completed by 2020.
According to a senior official,the project in Sikkim has been riddled with land acquisition issues. It is dueto the land acquisition issues that the project of laying a broad gauge linefrom Sivok to Rangpo which was sanction in 2008-09 has been in limbo and only19 percent of the work has been done.
The officials informed that among the most significant projects which are ongoing is the 111 km Jiribam-Tupul-Imphal line and 64% of the work has been completed so far. In Aizawl, the Bhairabi-Sairang 58.43 percent of the 51.38km line has been completed while in Nagaland's capital Kohima, the railways have made a progress of 25.23% in the Dimapur-Zubza line which 82.5 km.
In Meghalaya, the Tetelia-Byrnihat line has been under progress and 40 percent of the work has been completed of the 21.50 km line. A section of 10 km line of Tetelia-Kamlajari line has also been completed.
Another line in the state, the108.40 km Byrnihat–Shillong line has only seen progress of around 5%.
