After long and anxious wait, Northern Railways have feathered their hat with one more achievement, viz. the successful trial run of railway from Udhampur to Katra. This project has met with delay and breaking of date line several times. The engineers and organizers had a difficult time in controlling the seeping water in two of its tunnels. It was the primary reason for delaying the trial run. Now that proper plugging has been done and seepage is no more allowed, running of the passenger trains became a possibility. The General Manager of Northern Railways along with his team personally made the trial run between Udhampur and Katra, a distance of about 35 kilometers with several tunnels and a bridge over a seasonal river which is 10 meters higher than the Qutab Minar of Delhi. Indeed this link and the entire rail link between Jammu and Srinagar through the district of Reasi is one of the extraordinary engineering feats of the Northern Railways. The General Manager of Northern railways and his tem prayed at the shrine of Mata Vaishno Devi to seek the blessings of the Holy Mother for them and for the entire nation that will be visiting the shrine to pay obeisance. Once they disembark at Katra railway station, they will lower their head to the deity atop Trikuta Hills, at the foot of which the Katra railway station has been built overlooking a magnificent view of the lush green forests and mountain heights.
The beneficiaries of rail link to Katra will not be only the pilgrims coming from the farthest nooks of the country to Mata Vaishno Devi’s cave shrine, but also the rural population living on and around the entire hilly region lying to the north of Jammu city. Hitherto the only link of this rural area with Jammu and beyond was the road link called NH1. With the advent of railway across the region, life style will change and with that the people will begin to feel the touch of modernity to their lives. It means more education, health care facilities, opportunities of employment, increased scope of self employment and quantum rise in trade and commerce activities in the entire region. In fact railway connectivity will change the destiny of the people of the entire region.
The trial run has been made and the General Manager expressed his satisfaction that the link has been established despite many odds in the way. This shows the determination of India Railways to reach even the remotest parts of the country and change the life through connectivity. There is still a part of the process that has to be completed before the passenger railway begins chugging on the track to Katra from Udhampur. The certificate from the Commissioner Railway Security is yet to be obtained, which may take another two to three weeks. The Northern Railways hope that the inauguration ceremony will be presided over by the Prime Minister and that can happen only in the New Year. In a way this will be the New Year gift to the nation. The nation, in its turn is proud of her engineers, skilled workers, labourer and hundreds of others connected with the project. It is their sustained labour, work and dedication that have brought about a milestone change in the life and history of the region. We have the capacity to undertake construction and execution of big projects worthy of a historical nation like that of ours. India does not lack expertise, ingenuity and the spirit of adventure of transiting the country from old to new order and adapting to new scientific and technical ways of modern life. Indian Railways have the most widespread network in the world.
But with all said and done, there remains a lot to be done in bringing connectivity to the remote parts of the country. There is also the need of bringing rail link closest to our borders both on west and on east so that supplies of men and material and delivery along the border areas are speeded up. We need to have rail link with our border with China and Pakistan on priority basis. We would also like to emphasize that rail connectivity with Rajouri and Poonch, the two districts whose borders touch on Pakistan border, should be taken in hand on priority basis. Lastly we heartily congratulate the functionaries of Northern Railways for their singular contribution to the development of the hilly region of Jammu and Kashmir State. Preference should be given to the locals in recruitment to railway services.
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