First built as a cargo line to carry timber from Nepal to India in , the 35km railway from Janakpur in Nepal to Jaynagar in Bihar, India was a lifeline for people in Janakpur. There was a huge crowd, all people eagerly waiting for the train to arrive.
People who had seen the colonial era train chugging along the Nepal-India narrow gauge track were excited to see Nepal's first modern train. The train came. Now the plastic sheets have been tattered. Saturday marks the first anniversary of the arrival of the gleaming new train. Dubbed Janaki Rail, it has five coaches and can carry 1, passengers, sitting and standing, at a time.
The train, with a maximum speed of km per hour, was procured at Rs million. Supendra Kumar Kushwaha, another local, said he too was very excited that resumption of the service would bring back the lost glory of Janakpur.
Many had hoped that the railway service would create employment for locals, boost business activities and give a fillip to tourism in Janakpur, the birthplace of goddess Sita, where the Ram Janaki temple is a major religious and tourism attraction.
Kushwaha is one of the applicants for a job at the railway. He is still waiting for the railway authority to conduct the exams. A vacancy notice was issued for employees and more than 32, people had applied. The Department of Railways had collected up to Rs1, per person as exam fees.
He does not know why the train service has not come into operation even one year after it arrived in Nepal. In Nepal, railway is one of those many things promised by governments that stir up emotions among people and inspire hope.
After KP Sharma Oli came to power in , connecting Nepal with both its immediate neighbours—India and China—by trains was his common refrain. When the train arrived last year, the Oli government boasted it as one of its biggest achievements. Three months after the train arrived, Oli on December 20 last year dissolved the House, after protracted internal disputes in the then ruling Nepal Communist Party NCP , and declared polls.
On February 23, the Supreme Court restored the House of Representatives, but political bickering continued. Oli continued to threaten to dissolve the House again as he went for a floor test, lost it, got appointed again and created more confusion by asking the President to invoke Article 76 5 , a move that constitutional experts were quick to call unconstitutional. On May 5, the government introduced an ordinance on railway operations. But on May 21, Oli dissolved the House for a second time, throwing the country into uncertainty again.
About two months later, on July 12, the Supreme Court not only restored the House but also threw Oli out of office and ordered the appointment of Sher Bahadur Deuba as new prime minister. The Deuba government on July 18 presented the ordinance on railway operations before Parliament. The deadline ended on September Even more than two months after his appointment, Deuba has not been able to expand his Cabinet.
There is no dedicated minister at the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport, which oversees the Department of Railways. The section from Bijalpura to Janakpur closed in following a bridge collapse. The remaining 29km of the line from Janakpur to Jaynagar continued in operation, albeit rather erratically, for local passenger traffic with some freight until , when it was closed for conversion to broad gauge.
It reopened in Extension to the original terminus of Bijalpura is planned. Around , proposals emerged for several major new railways.
It was started by British Government when there was British rule in India in Later, this railway was closed in Again this railway service from Jayanagar to Janakpura has come into operation.
The credit goes to the new government of Nepal. Now, it is a new concept to launch railways in Nepal and in Kathmandu. If these two major railways are launched, it will create a history in transportation in transportation in Nepal. The Chinese team of experts who were in Nepal to conduct surveys on two railway lines—one stretching from Kerung on the border with Tibet to Kathmandu, and another going from Pokhara to Lumbini—have said that both the lines are feasible. Not only is this region comprised of difficult terrains.
Since it will snow in this section during the winter, laying down a snow-resistant railway track could be particularly expensive. And should something go wrong there, repair works too will be tough. But these problems are not insurmountable either. After all, the Chinese rail link into Tibet passes through even more treacherous terrains. In building the railway into Tibet China has shown that there is no barrier, natural or otherwise, that modern technology cannot overcome.
But before we get into the logistics of the two rail lines, it bears asking a question that Indian intellectuals often raise whenever there is talk of cross-border connectivity between Nepal and China: Is China ready to open up Tibet for trade with the outside world?
It seems so. Otherwise, what is the point of China extending the Lhasa line right up to Kerung on the border with Nepal? In this thinking, it does not make any commercial sense for China to take the risk of opening Tibet to get access to the miniscule Nepali markets. That could be true. But even if the ultimate Chinese goal is to penetrate the huge North Indian markets, as the same intellectuals concede, the Chinese will first have to build roads and railways that link Tibet with North India, and the most feasible routes for this are via Nepal.
So much for what China wants out of the proposed railways.
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