Work Expedited to Bring Imphal on Railway Map

IMPHAL: The capital of Manipur will be connected by rail in the next two years, taking the country’s railway network to barely 100 km from Myanmar border. This will become a new lifeline for Imphal, which is now primarily dependent on the road network for getting essential supplies.

Though the crucial 111 km Jiribam (Assam border) to Imphal new line project has been delayed due to several reasons, the Northeast Frontier Railway has now accelerated the work to complete it within the revised timeline.
This link is crucial as nearly 70% of Manipur’s population lives in Imphal and at a later stage, this railway line may be extended till Myanmar border for the proposed Trans-Asian railway line.

The broad gauge railway line project is part of the government’s move to connect all the capitals of northeastern states by rail with the rest of the country. The Jiribam-Imphal rail link will also help reduce travel time as currently it takes 11-12 hours to complete the 200-225 km journey between these two points. Once the rail operation starts, trains will cover this stretch in just two and a half hours.

Besides the economic and social benefits associated with this project, it is going to be an engineering marvel for railways. The rail line project will have 46 tunnels, including a 12-km single tube tunnel which will be the second longest in Indian Railways network. It will have 153 bridges. One of the bridges, Noney Bridge, which is under construction, is slated to become the world’s tallest rail bridge on piers as two out of the seven piers will be of 141 meters each. The other piers vary between 50 meters to 90 meters. Currently, Mala-Rijeka viaduct on Belgrade-Bar railway line in Europe is the tallest where the height of pillars is 139 meters.

Source: ToI