‘Eastern Rly dedicated to work out solutions for completing Tarakeswar-Bishnupur Rail proj’

Kolkata: Completion of the Tarakeswar-Bishnupur Railway line faces challenges as the villagers residing near Bhabadighi pond area and the Goghat-Kamarpukur stretch have raised concerns regarding the laying of Railway tracks through their land.

Eastern Railway (ER) authorities stated that the ER is dedicated to work out solutions for completing Tarakeswar-Bishnupur Rail project and sought cooperation of the local residents. They stated that once this Railway line is completed, it will link the heritage site of Bishnupur’s terracotta temples with the famed Lord Shiva temple at Tarakeswar.

The tourism circuit encompassing Bishnupur-Joyrambati-Kamarpukur-Tarakeswar heavily relies on road transport which not only consumes time but also poses travelling hazards. At present, the local train journey from Howrah to Goghat takes two hours and thirty minutes and if the link up to Bishnupur is established, it will take another thirty minutes.

A bus journey upto Bishnupur will take more than five hours whereas the journey by an EMU train will be completed by three hours. The fare from Howrah to Bishnupur by an EMU train will be around Rs 30 whereas the fare by bus is around Rs 150.

Earlier, ER officials claimed that the completion of Tarakeswar-Bishnupur link faced land acquisition related bottlenecks. According to Eastern Railway, the 82.47 kilometres of the new line project is almost complete and only a stretch of 950 metre of track laying at Bhabadighi area is still pending.

It was claimed that the villagers are cooperating but around 0.78 acres of land was yet to be handed over to Railways for completing the track-laying work. “The Calcutta High Court has already issued an order in favour of land acquisition in this area and there are no legal bottlenecks but unfortunately Railways are yet to get the total area required,” Eastern Railway stated.

The Bhabadighi water pond has an area of 17.48 acres from where only 3.05 acres of land is required for laying the Railway track in this area. Among 268 persons having land stake hold, Railways has received land from 191 persons but land from 77 persons is pending. Several meetings were organised with the state authorities as well as with local people and Railway is expecting that an amicable solution will soon come up.