In her budget speech, Mamata Banerjee today said that experts studying alignment issues on the mountainous Katra-Qazigund section in J&K had submitted their report, and because “safety of passengers” was her “foremost concern”, the decision on the project would have to be made “very carefully”.

“I will review the matter soon and see how quickly this section of the national project can be taken up for completion,” the Railway Minister told the Lok Sabha.

What she did not say is that India’s ambitious Train to Kashmir project now stares at an even longer delay that threatens to push back its date of completion by a full decade.

The high-level expert committee formed by the ministry under the chairmanship of former Railway Board chairman M Ravindra to review the original and proposed new alignments for the line between Katra and Banihal on the Katra-Qazigund section is learnt to have recommended that the realignments suggested by Swiss Engineering Consultant Amberg should be accepted.

The expert committee report is not yet public. But information available with The Indian Express says that Amberg has suggested realigning as much as 93 kilometres of the total 126-kilometre long Katra-Banihal section. Amberg, it is reliably learnt, has suggested realignments from Kilometre 30 to 38, 60 to 97 and 101 to 149.

The expert committee has recommended that Amberg’s view should be accepted “even if it means elimination of two stations, Bhata and Kholi”. Significantly, Konkan Railways Corporation Limited (KRCL) and IRCON, the two Railway PSUs executing works on this section, had suggested a realignment of around 38.78 km.

... contd.