Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Monday outlined the budget priorities for the eastern states while citing plans for 40km-long underground tracks connecting the Northeast and a bullet train from Varanasi to Siliguri via Patna.
The underground tracks will run along part of the strategic Siliguri Corridor or “Chicken’s Neck” — a narrow strip in north Bengal hemmed in by Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan — that is the only land link between the Northeast and the rest of the country.
Apart from this, there are plans to make existing tracks in the region four-line, he said.
Vaishnaw spoke of improved links with Bhutan through lines from Kokrajhar (Assam) and Banarhat (north Bengal) to Gelephu and Samtse in the Himalayan country, respectively.
He said special consideration was being given to the environment, including the installation of AI-based cameras that would detect elephant herds near forest tracks so they can be protected from getting run over.
The minister said the bullet train from Varanasi to Siliguri via Patna would be a game-changer for regional economies, and would later be extended to Guwahati. He said two new bullet train corridors would be built in Tamil Nadu.
Apart from these three, four other high-speed rail corridors will be developed.
In September 2017, the foundation stone was laid for the first high-speed rail corridor, the Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train, which is still in progress.
Vaishnaw told a new conference that ₹14,205 crore had been allocated for railway projects in Bengal, ₹11,486 crore for the northeastern states, ₹10,928 crore for Odisha, ₹10,379 crore for Bihar and ₹7,536 crore for Jharkhand.
He said work worth ₹72,468 crore was already under way in the Northeast, including the construction of tracks connecting Manipur and Nagaland with the rest of the country.
The minister mentioned a new dedicated freight corridor connecting Dankuni (Bengal) to Surat (Gujarat) that will pass through, among others, Odisha and Chhattisgarh.
He said projects worth ₹90,659 were under way in Odisha. Since 2014, he said, approximately 2,200km of tracks had been built in the state, which was bigger than the entire rail network of Malaysia.
Vaishnaw, who held three news conferences outlining the state-wise budget priorities, said ₹7,611 crore had been allocated for Tamil Nadu, ₹3,975 crore for Kerala and ₹17,366 crore for Gujarat.