Rails to the Edge: Laying tracks to frontiers

India accelerates strategic northeastern rail projects, including Bairabi–Sairang and Jiribam–Imphal lines, to strengthen connectivity and counter China’s border infrastructure push.

Within hours of putting Aizawl on India’s railway map on September 13, Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has made it clear that the tracks will go down deeper in Mizoram, just like its neighbour Manipur, where the plan is to take the railways to Moreh on the India-Myanmar border. He said that the Bairabi-Sairang railway line, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated, would be extended to the southern border of Mizoram, opening direct trade routes to Myanmar and Southeast Asia via Sittwe Port.

He reaffirmed the government’s commitment to connect the far-flung areas, from the Northeast to Ladakh and J&K, with railway lines for people’s benefit and for uplifting the local economy. What was left unsaid is that such rail links would also boost the strategic posture of India in the areas close to its borders with China and Pakistan.

While road networks in the border areas in the northeastern region, J&K, Ladakh, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh have improved over the decades, the railway projects have often been slow due to difficult terrain, complicated engineering, harsh climate and mammoth cost.

Built at a cost of Rs 8,070 crore, the 51 km Bairabi-Sairang line that passes through 45 tunnels, 55 major bridges and 87 minor bridges is the second success of the Indian Railways after the 272 km Udhampur–Srinagar–Baramulla Rail Link that includes engineering marvels, like the Chenab bridge, linking the Kashmir valley to the rest of the country. 

“For the Northeast, 12 railway projects (8 new lines, 4 doubling) having a total length of 777 Km, costing Rs 69,342 crore have been sanctioned. Out of this 278 Km length has been commissioned and an expenditure of Rs 41,676 crore has been incurred up to March 2025,” Vaishnaw said. In the current financial year, Rs 10,440 crore is being spent. 

In Nagaland, the Molvom–Pherima stretch (14 km) is set to open by October 2026, followed by the Pherima–Zubza section (38 km) in December 2029, a milestone to mark rail connectivity to Nagaland’s capital, Kohima.

In Manipur, Jiribam (close to Assam border)-Imphal line that will cut down the travel time to two hours from the existing 12 hours, is likely to be commissioned in 2028. The first two sections of the Murkongselek-Pasighat line in Arunachal are due to be operational by October 2025 and February 2026, respectively. The Indian Railway constructed around 1,700 km of rail lines in the northeastern region and hopes to complete another 200 km of railway line construction by 2027 end.

The Murkongselek-Pasighat-Rupai railway line is one of the 14 strategic railway lines identified by the Ministry of Defence more than two decades ago. The Centre, in 2013, gave an assurance in the Parliament to complete the projects to make the movement of soldiers to border areas easier to deal with emergencies.

One of them, the Srinagar–Kargil–Leh project, was abandoned after a 2016–17 survey flagged low traffic projections. The proposed Jammu–Poonch line also remains stalled, with the Akhnoor-Rajouri link failing to clear the feasibility hurdles. There are also no immediate plans to survey a Ganderbal–Kargil link.

Instead, the government has prioritised the Banihal–Baramulla doubling (118 km) to handle growing traffic. Five new surveys – Baramulla-Uri, Sopore-Kupwara, Anantnag-Pahalgam, Avantipore-Shopian, and Banihal–Baramulla – are also underway. Despite the whopping Rs 1.31 lakh crore cost, the Bilaspur–Manali–Leh project (489 km) is on track. A 13 km extension beyond Leh is being planned. A detailed project report has been made for a 69 km new railway line to connect Kokrajhar in Assam with Bhutan.

On the other side of the Sino-Indian boundary, China plans to complete construction of its strategic Xinjiang-Tibet railway project by 2030, apart from exploring a cross-border railway link to Nepal. This should prompt India to expedite its strategic railway projects in the border regions. “In the wake of China’s aggressive building of infrastructure near border areas, it has become more important than ever that these strategic railway lines are completed soon,” summed up a panel of Parliamentarians.

(With inputs from Zulfikar Majid and Sumir Karmakar)