During
my engineering college days, we had a classmate, who was a Kashmiri
from Srinagar. When he joined our college in Bengaluru city in south
India, travelling all the way from Kashmir in the north, he saw for
the the first time in his life, two things, about which he had only
read and heard before. First thing was off course the Sea, which he
could see in Chennai and the second thing was a common mode of travel
known to us as a train, which was unknown to him so far, and he used
it for the first time while travelling from Udhampur in Jammu region
to Bengaluru city in south.
The
Kashmir valley, as we all know, is surrounded by huge Himalayan peaks
from all sides and for all these years, no one thought it possible,
including the British in the raj days, to lay train tracks from
Indian plains to Kashmir deeply saddled between Pir Panjal mountains
and the Himalayas. India's railway board has taken up this near
impossible task and hopes to connect Kashmir with rest of India by
2017, a stupendous and astounding task on all counts. This huge
project has been split into four sectors. Baramulla town in north to
state capital Srinagar, Srinagar to Qazigund town, Qazigund to
Banihal town on Srinagar-Jammu highway and finally the most
treacherous part netween Banihal and Udhampur.
The
Baramulla-Srinagar-Qazigund line has been up and running for several
years now. This portion runs mainly within the valley itself and was
a relatively easy task to complete. To take this train any further
south, meant crossing the formidable Pir Panjal mountain range.
India's Northern Railways made history of sorts this week, as the
first train chugged through India’s longest railway tunnel through
the Pir Panjal mountains, connecting for the first time, Kashmir
Valley to Banihal town., which lies on the outside of Kashmir valley,
on the Srinagar-Jammu highway. Technically this means that the train
has finally moved out of Kashmir valley.
To
cross the Pir Panjal range, a tunnel was excavated having a length of
11.21 Km. This is the longest railway tunnel in India and the second
largest in Asia and has reduced the distance between Qazigund-Banihal
by half — from 35 km to 17.5 km. The tunnel is 8.40 metres wide and
7.39 metres high. A trial run of a train was planned earlier this
week but was abandoned because a group of around 800 residents of
villages around Qazigund, blocked the tracks near Humu village, about
4 KMs from the Qazigund Railway station. The local villagers
including women and children, blocked the railway track by erecting
barricades and holding 'sit in' with several demands which included
a 1 minute stop-over at Hillad village for the train and railway jobs
to kin of those farmers, who have given their land for the line.
Chief Controller of Northern Railways, Mr. Nand Lal, says however;
“The jobs have been already provided to the locals.”
The
trial run was planned later again, after administration talked and
persuaded the villagers to allow the train to pass. This time there
was no hitch and a train, on a trial run, arrived at Banihal from
Qazigund in Anantnag district of Kashmir to a thunderous applause of
hundreds of townsfolk.
People
of South Kashmir, are thrilled and jubilant over the completion of
Banihal-Qazigund rail track and are eagerly waiting for the
Baramulla-Srinagar train to cross the Pir Panchal range to Banihal.
Rouf Ahmad, a resident of Qazigund says: “We are quite excited
that the train will chug off from Banihal as it would reduce the
travel and also reap economic benefits for us.” Everyone now hopes
for the Udhampur-Banihal stretch to be completed soon so that the
valley is connected to rest of the country via Rail link.
Finally,
Kashmir can hear the train song from now and young people like my
friend of 50 years ago, no more have to travel by road, to Udhampur
to see a train. The train itself would take them to Udhampur and also
to anywhere else in the country.
31
December 2012
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