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IMPHAL — Amid the ongoing unrest, the Northeast Frontier (NF) Railways, in coordination with Manipur Transport department and traders, has started transporting essential commodities and other items to Manipur.
The train was formally flagged off from New Guwahati railway station around 7:30 am on Sunday, Shanta Nahakpam, a trader from Manipur, said when contacted on the phone. The train carrying essential commodities with 13 compartments is scheduled to arrive at Khongsang Railway station in Manipur’s Tamenglong district around 10 am tomorrow (Monday).
Confirming this by sharing a video clip of the formal flagging of the train in a tweet today, Manipur Chief Minister, N Biren Singh, wrote, “In a significant milestone, the first goods train loaded with essential commodities has been flagged off from Guwahati goods yard, bound for Khongsang Railway Station at Tamenglong.”
In a significant milestone, the first goods train loaded with essential commodities have been flagged off from Guwahati goods yard, bound for Khongsang Railway Station at Tamenglong. This marks a new era of faster and efficient connectivity for Manipur.
— N.Biren Singh (@NBirenSingh) July 23, 2023
My heartfelt gratitude… pic.twitter.com/DYSPrMXl0R
“This marks a new era of faster and more efficient connectivity for Manipur. My heartfelt gratitude to Hon’ble PM Shri @narendramodi Ji and Railway Minister Shri @AshwiniVaishnav Ji for making this possible,” he added.
[bsa_pro_ad_space id=1]Last week, NF Railways announced that the Khongsang Railway station which was commissioned in 2022 in the Jiribam – Imphal new line project under NF Railway in Manipur has been opened for loading and unloading after it was suspended due to the prevailing law and order situation in Manipur.
Read here: NFR opens Khongsang station for movement of essential items to Manipur
Manipur had been witnessing ethnic violence since the first week of May, in which around 140 people were killed and nearly 50,000 people were displaced besides burning many villages.
In view of the prevailing law and order situation in Manipur, the state has been witnessing disturbance in the normal movement of supplies since the beginning of the violence.
It may be recalled that the NF Railway had extended the first direct passenger train service called Jan Shatabdi Express connecting Tripura’s Agartala and Khongsang covering a stretch of about 55 km as part of the ongoing 111 km Imphal-Jiribam railway line project, which is one of the crucial connectivity projects for India’s Northeastern region and it is being constructed at an estimated cost of about INR 14,322 crore to connect Manipur state capital Imphal with the country’s broad gauge railway network.
After completion, the present road journey time of about 10 hours to reach Imphal from Jiribam, the state's first rail head is expected to be reduced to 2.5 hours by railways.
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