No headway in expansion of 120-km Kangra valley rail line

Ravinder Sood

Palampur, February 1

The expansion of the 120-km Kangra valley railway line — one of the oldest narrow gauge tracks of India — is hanging fire for a long time now.

The Ministry of Railways, in the last five years, has shown no interest in its expansion and linking it with proposed Bilaspur-Leh rail track at Mandi via Joginder Nagar.

The British had laid this rail track in 1932, linking all important and religious towns of Kangra and parts of Mandi district. In the last 80 years, Indian Railways has not added even a single brick to this track.

A number of plans were drawn up to convert this narrow gauge line into a broad gauge line, but all remained confined to files.

The condition of the rail track between Pathankot and Joginder Nagar has gone from bad to worse in the last 10 years.

Kangra valley rail line is considered lifeline of 40 lakh residents of lower hills of Himachal Pradesh. Originally, it was planned to link Pathankot with Leh via Kangra Valley but later the then NDA government changed the alignment and a new DPR was prepared linking Leh with Bhanapuli Bilaspur rail line route. Earlier, seven trains were running on this route covering 33 stations every day, passing through important places such as Nurpur, Jwali, Jwalamukhi road, Kangra, Nagrota Bagwan, Chamunda, Palampur, Baijnath and Joginder Nagar, which are also major tourist centres. However, for the past one-and-half-years train services have been suspended following collapse of bridge over Chakki river near Pathankot.

During assembly and parliamentary elections in 2017 and 2019, local Member of Parliament Krishan Kapoor and other central leaders made tall promises to Kangra residents over converting Kangra Valley narrow gauge rail line into broad gauge tack and further linking it with Leh via Manali. However, in the last five years no headway was made and no efforts were made acquire land or prepare the DPR.

In 2003, when NDA was in power at the Centre, the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee planned to link Pathankot with Leh via Manali keeping in view the defence requirements of the country. In fact after Kargil War of 1999, the Centre had realised the importance of this route. The Union government decided to develop an alternative route to Leh via Kangra as this route is considered safest and beyond the firing range of Pakistan.

As of now, Kangra Valley rail line is in a bad shape. Most of its infrastructure has outlived its life and is crying for attention. The condition of the track has gone from bad to worse with time.

Owing to poor maintenance and lack of funds, work on repair and replacement of the old bridges and retaining walls has been hindered.