Srinagar, Mar 25: Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw today said that Kashmir will be connected with the rest of the country through rail link by the end of this year and a specially designed ‘Vande Bharat’ train is being developed fAddressing a press conference at the Srinagar Railway Station in the Nowgam area here, the Minister said the Udhampur-Banihal track, connecting Jammu with Srinagar, will be completed by December this year, or early next year.Vaishnaw said that there is good progress on the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla rail line and the work on the Chenab and Anji bridges, and major tunnels is also going and there is good progress. “By the grace of God, the train will chug on this route in December this year or January-February next year,” he said.The Minister said a specially designed ‘Vande Bharat’ train is being developed for this line. “Everything like temperature, snow, has been kept in mind while manufacturing this special train. You will have the train in the middle of 2024,” he said.On the delay in completing the project, the Minister said there was less funding before Prime Minister Narendra Modi took over in 2014. “The cost of the project is Rs 35,000 crore. They used to get only Rs 700-800 crores per year. So, after Modi came to power, he doubled it. Then tripled it and now has increased the funding six times of what it was,” Vaishnaw said.He said this year, Rs 6,000 crore has been allotted for the railway project in J&K in the budget.Vaishnaw said there were technical reasons for the delay as well. “The Himalayas are the young mountains which means they are soft and tunnelling work is very difficult. However, all big challenges have now been completed and all the difficult works have been done,” he added.He described the Chenab railway bridge an engineering marvel and said it is one of the highest bridges in the world and the highest railway bridge in the country.“It is higher than the Eiffel Tower…All the tests have been done and all have been successful. High velocity winds, extreme temperature, earthquake prone area, hydrological impact, everything has been studied in detail. Now, the bridge is ready for operation, ready for commissioning. The track laying work is on. This is the greatest thing for J&K,” he said.The Minister said the Anji bridge will be also completed by August this year and after fine-tuning works, it will be available for commissioning by September this year. He said 41 segments out of the 47 have already been launched, adding the whole project is very complex.Vaishnaw said this year, the Railways is laying a track of 13 kilometres per day, which is a record and credited it to Modi.“This speed of work has been witnessed for the first time after independence under the able leadership of Modi,” he said.He said electric train will be inaugurated in J&K very soon as the electrification work has been completed..
