KATHMANDU, APRIL 1
All necessary preparations have been completed for the regular operation of railway from Kurtha of Dhanusha to Jayanagar of India.
Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, are scheduled to inaugurate the operation of railway jointly from New Delhi, India.
The prime ministers of the two close neighbours will 'flag off' and inaugurate the service operations amidst a special ceremony in the Indian capital.
It may be noted that Prime Minister Deuba is paying a three-day official visit to India, beginning today.
The government on September 18, 2020 had procured two trains from India at a cost of Rs 846.5 million for the operation of railway service.
Though this is not the first railway service of Nepal, this is the first ever service of modern railway technology for the country.
According to Department of Railways Spokesperson and Senior Divisional Engineer Aman Chitrakar, on Saturday representatives of both nations will take the inaugural train ride from Jayanagar to Kurtha.
Similarly, Minister for Physical Infrastructure and Transport Renu Kumari Yadav will join the team from Jayanagar in Janakapur up to Kurtha and then she will return to Janakpur and from there, the train will leave for Jayanagar again. The service will remain as the inter-country railway.
The railway service will run regularly as per the schedule from Sunday following its inauguration on Saturday, said Niranjan Jha, the general manager of the Railway Company.
According to him, the schedule has been determined so that the train will run two times a day. The train will leave Jayanagar for Kurtha at 8:30am and 3:00pm and set off from Kurtha for Jayanagar at 10:30am and 5:15pm.
"We have completed preparations for operating the railway service regularly from Sunday," he said.
The government had bought two sets of DEMU (Diesel Electric Multiple Unit) engines from India for operating service on the railway constructed with the financial and technical assistance of the government of India.
General Manager Jha said that 1,350 passengers can travel by a single train and they can carry handbags along with them. The trains coming into service are passenger trains.
The rail track from Kurtha to Jayanagar was constructed two years back and railway service is being operated on this route now. It is a 35-kilometre-long journey. The construction of railway track on additional 17 kilometres from Kurtha to Bijulpura has reached the final stages.
Train service would be operated on a total 52 kilometres on completion of this section.
Department's Spokesperson Chitrakar said the construction of the railway track from Kurtha to Bijulpura is nearing completion stage and the train service can be operated on this route within the next four months. There are eight stops on the 35-kilometre route.
A version of this article appears in the print on April 2, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
