Source: https://www.financialexpress.com/lifestyle/travel-tourism/train-to-manipur-indian-railways-shares-progress-report-of-jiri
Publisher: Financial Express
A travellers dream to take a train journey to Manipur is going to be realised soon. Indian Railways has shared the progress report Jiribam-Imphal rail project. 89.2% work of train to Manipur project is now complete. Indian railways has finished the work on 48 out of 52 tunnels and construction of 6 out of 11 stations is also complete. Of the 11 major bridges, substructure of 7 and superstructure of 5 has been completed while 101 of 129 minor bridges are also ready.
The work on worlds’ tallest railway pier bridge in Manipur is also going on in full swing. Indian Railways has completed over 75% work on Noney Bridge. An Engineering marvel, Noney Bridge is being constructed over the Ijai river near Noney. The Bridge’s height will be a towering 141-metres making it the tallest pier rail bridge in the world. The current record holder is139-metre tall Mala-Rijeka viaduct in Montenegro in Europe.
The Jiribam-Imphal rail project is an engineering marvel in itself and has been envisaged to connect the remote North Eastern state with rest of India by rail. The 111 km long Jiribam-Imphal rail project will reduce the travel time between Assam and Manipur’s capital from 10-12 hours to just 2-3 hours. At present, crossing the valley requires a 220-km journey.
The Government of India included Jiribam-Imphal rail project in Budget 2003-04. The latest anticipated cost of the project is over Rs. 12,200 crore. 12km length from Jiribam to Vangaichungpao has been completed and commissioned in March, 2017. Completion of any Railway project depends on various factors like quick land acquisition by State Government, forest clearance by officials of forest department, shifting of infringing utilities, statutory clearances from various authorities, geological and topographical conditions of area, law and order situation in the area of project site, number of working months in a year for particular project site due to climatic conditions etc., and all these factors differ from project to project and affect the completion time of the project.
