After ‘long wait’, Balurghat-Hili Rail extension project resumes

BALURGHAT: The Balurghat-Hili Rail extension project flagged off by the Northeast Frontier (NF) Railway. Surendra Kumar, Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) of NF Railway (Katihar Division) who was present in the re-commencement programme at Hili said: “We are happy to announce the re-commencement of Balurghat-Hili Railway project. After a long wait, the work of the Balurghat-Hili Railway project finally resumed on Sunday.

Initially, we had re-laid the foundation stone and inaugurated the half-complete work of the Balurghat-Hili Railway project. Five partially completed Railway bridges of the new broad gauge Railway construction project from Balurghat to Hili were restarted.”

It is reported that Rs 55 crore has been allocated for this work. Railways had given around Rs 298 crore to the district administration to acquire land for the extension of this Railway line recently of which Rs 33 crore had already been disbursed to the landowners through their bank accounts.

Incidentally, the project was announced by the then Rail minister Mamata Banerjee and the work of extending the Railway line from Balurghat to Hili started in 2010 by identifying land.

Construction of bridges over river Atreyee in Balurghat and Yamuna in Hili also started.

However, work came to a halt due complications caused by the land acquisition process. After the intervention of the Calcutta High Court, the Railways resumed the project.

According to the South Dinajpur district administration, 386 acres of land had been identified for the 29.7 km stretch from Balurghat to Hili for the project.

After identifying the land and determining the value of the land, the district administration had earlier sent a proposal of Rs 298 crore to the Ministry of Railways.