Railways translate 26-year-old dream into reality, Mizoram's Bairabi-Sairang Line ready

Aizawl: First conceptualised in September 1999, the Bairabi-Sairang railway line has finally brought Mizoram's capital Aizawl on the country's railway map after overcoming unprecedented challenges in terms of alignment, short working seasons and frequent landslides.

Officials said the dream which Railways saw in 1999 turned into a reality when it was commissioned in June this year by the Commissioner of Railway Safety.

The 51.38-km long railway line will soon be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

In 1999, when engineers learnt that a preliminary survey was not possible due to thick forest, poor visibility, and other local issues, it was agreed to conduct a reconnaissance survey, which involved a rough route assessment, according to documents.

"Under a Preliminary Engineering cum-Traffic Survey (PET) a detailed examination of the route is done. As a PET survey was found not feasible, the Board was requested to change it to Reconnaissance Engineering-Cum-Traffic (RET) survey, which the Railway Board agreed on July 15, 2003," a senior railway official said.

He added, "The RET survey for the Bairabi-Sairang Rail link was carried out by the Northeast Frontier Railways in March 2006. Based on this, RITES was asked to carry out a pre-construction Survey and Geo-Technical Investigation in 2008 for a new BG Railway line from Bairabi-Sairang. Accordingly, RITES submitted its final report in August 2011." Considering an important link between Mizoram and the rest of the country, the then UPA government declared this project as a "National Project" in 2008-09. Subsequently, PM Modi laid its foundation stone on November 29, 2014.

The NF Railways completed the land acquisition process by 2014-2015 and a year later, in 2015-16, it started the construction in full swing.

Vinod Kumar, chief engineer of the project, said, "The working season in the area is of very short duration and limited to only four-five months (i.e., from November to March) in a year and no work is possible from April to October due to the prolonged duration of monsoon with heavy rainfall." "The alignment is traversing through hilly terrain, deep valleys and gorges requiring construction of tunnels and tall bridges/viaducts.Also, due to frequent interruptions to traffic on the National Highway between Guwahati to Silchar, transportation of materials is a big challenge even today," he said.

Engineers working on the site said the project access/site roads are prone to frequent landslides and failures and become slippery even after a single rain, resulting in the stoppage of movement of materials at the site.

"The project access roads are narrow and with steep gradients, on which big trucks/trailers cannot be used. Therefore, materials brought from outside on big trucks/ trailers were transhipped into small carriers and then taken from the highway to the project site," an NFR official said.

He added," Transportation of large cranes for erection of bridge girders was very difficult. These were transported after dismantling of major parts and reassembling at the site." Engineers working on the site said even local labour was unavailable in Mizoram and all the labourers were brought from other states.

"Mizoram is the remotest state in the Northeast with the project located in completely hilly areas with no mobile network at most of the project sites and therefore the labourers hesitated to come to Mizoram for work and there has always been a shortage of labour in the project," Kumar said.

He added that suitable construction materials (i.e. sand, stone chips etc.) were also not available in Mizoram and were transported from adjacent states like Assam, West Bengal, Meghalaya etc.

According to the NFR, the line has 48 tunnels covering 12.853 km, 55 major and 87 minor bridges, five road overbridges and nine road underbridges, with one of the bridges numbered at 196 boasting of a height of 104 metres, 42 metres taller than the Qutub Minar. PTI JP NB DV DV