KATHMANDU, FEB 28 -
The Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation has given the go-ahead to
conduct a detailed project report (DPR) of the proposed Simara-Tamsariya railway line.
The DPR of the Chitwan section had been held up for the last eight
months after the Department of Forest and Chitwan National Park (CNP)
refused to let the study be done citing environmental concerns.
Department officials said that they received permission to conduct the
DPR last week after the proposed rail route was realigned to avoid core
areas of the national park.
A 7-km stretch of the railroad passes through the centre of CNP,
according to the Department of Railways. Located in south central Nepal,
CNP is the home of the famed one-horned rhino and is a popular jungle
safari destination. The Railways Department had hired a consortium of
South Korean and local companies to conduct the DPR.
The 114-km Simara-Tamsariya section forms part of the East-West
Electric Railway mega project which has planned to build a railway line
connecting Mechi in the east to Mahakali in the west.
Rajeshwor Man Singh, officiating director general of the department,
said that they would complete the DPR within three months. “Due to
biodiversity issues, we changed the alignment avoiding the core areas of
CNP as much as possible,” he added.
After the changes in the alignment, the total length of the section
would increase from 114 km to 126 km, including 7 km passing through the
heart of CNP.
As per the department’s new plan, the 7-km stretch passing through the
national park will consist of an elevated track over the proposed
alignment of the Postal Highway.
Kamal Jung Kunwar, chief warden of CNP, said that they permitted the
DPR with a precondition that an environmental impact assessment (EIA)
also be done to determine that the alignment was feasible
environmentally.
Meanwhile, DPRs are being conducted on other parts of the
Simara-Tamsariya section which forms a major segment of the proposed
railway project. This part of the railroad is considered to be vital as
it links Kathmandu and Indian Railways across the border in Raxaul.
A consortium consisting of Soosung Engineering of South Korea and a
local firm Full Bright Consultancy is preparing the DPR of the section
as per an agreement signed in March last year.
According to the government’s target for the current fiscal year, it
will start construction of the railway project and complete the DPR of
the Simara-Tamsariya and
Tamsariya-Butwal sections. However, Singh said that it would be
difficult to meet the target due to the delayed DPR and release of funds
for payment of compensation to speed up work on laying the track bed on
the 108-km Bardibas-Simara section.
The department plans to start construction of 5 km of track bed on the
Simara-Bardibas section. This section’s DPR was completed last year.
CNP and the Postal Highway project have not been able to resolve their
disagreement on the improvement of the alignment in Chitwan.
Meanwhile, a high-level official at the Ministry of Physical
Infrastructure and Transport Management said that they had been
receiving pressure from some Constituent Assembly members to change the
alignment of the Tamsariya-Butwal section of the East-West Railway.
The official said that they had been asked to reroute the railway
further south as the proposed alignment passes through land plotting
areas.
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