Ministry of Railways has been laying great emphasis on improvement in Railway infrastructure in the North-eastern region. North Eastern Region is served by Northeast Frontier Railway consisting of 8 states i.e. Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya and Sikkim.
Out of 8 States of North Eastern Region, rail network connectivity now exists in 7 States. For, Sikkim, the new line project Sivok-Rangpo (44 km) was sanctioned. The foundation stone of this project was done by Minister of Railway, Govt. of India at Sivok (West Bengal) on 30.10.2009 & at Rangpo (in Sikkim) by Vice President of India on the same day.
Out of Total length of 44.96 km, 38.65 km (86%) is in tunnels, 2.24 km (5%) in Bridges and4.79 km (9%) length in open cutting/filling of station yards. The proposed line consists of 14 tunnels with longest tunnel of 5.30 km& the smallest tunnel covers 538 metres. Five stations including Sivok and Rangpo are planned on proposed Railway Line. Four stations are proposed to be open crossing stations e.g., Sivok, Riyang, Melli & Rangpo and one underground halt station e.g. Teesta Bazar.
The Tunnelling which is about 86% of the total length is constructed by the latest Technique called NATM (New Austrian Tunnelling Method). The works of this project is supervised by the International Consultants so that the Safety and Quality is ensured. IRCON is taking all the measures so that there is minimum disturbance to the Environment and Forest.
Video of the project: