Mizoram’s Sairang railway line planned to be linked with Kaladan project in Myanmar: Governor

AIZAWL: Mizoram Governor, Gen Vijay Kumar Singh (retd), on Saturday said that the new Sairang railway line in the state is planned to be integrated with the ambitious Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project (KMMTTP) in Myanmar.  A Raj Bhavan official said that the Governor, while speaking with a visiting media team, expressed confidence that the stretch between the Sairang railway line near Aizawl and Kaladan will be completed smoothly.

Highlighting the ongoing developmental initiatives in Mizoram, Gen Singh (retd) described the recently inaugurated 51.38-km Bairabi-Sairang railway line as a game-changer for Mizoram.

The 51.38-kilometre-long Bairabi (near southern Assam)-Sairang section was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Aizawl on September 13.

A senior official of the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) said that the project showcases exceptional engineering, comprising 45 tunnels, 143 bridges (including one taller than Delhi's Qutub Minar), and four new stations at Hortoki, Kawnpui, Mualkhang, and Sairang.

He said the Bairabi-Sairang new rail line project marks a historic milestone for the Northeast, providing rail connectivity to the capital of Mizoram, for the first time -- effectively integrating the state into India's railway grid.

"Despite extremely challenging terrain and adverse weather, the Northeast Frontier Railway (Construction) team successfully executed this complex project, which will boost trade, tourism, and socio-economic development across Mizoram and the wider Northeast," the NFR official said.

Currently, four Northeastern state capitals -- Dispur (near Guwahati) in Assam, Agartala in Tripura, Naharlagun near Arunachal Pradesh's capital Itanagar, and Sairang near Mizoram's capital Aizawl -- are connected by rail.

Work is underway to link Imphal, the capital of Manipur and Kohima, the capital of Nagaland, to the national rail network.

The NFR would link the Myanmar border by rail through Manipur and Mizoram, the official said. He said that while the final location survey of the 111 km Imphal-Moreh (along the Myanmar border) section is already underway for the construction of a new broad gauge line, it would construct a broad gauge line from Sairang to Hmawngbuchhuah in Mizoram's Lawngtlai district, near the Myanmar border. (IANS)

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