Kazakh plane to put J-K line on track

Earlier, work on the stretch was stopped after the kidnapping and murder of IRCON engineer Pundeer Kumar and his brother near the construction site. Before the project could resume after the incident, the government was faced with the task of transporting the coaches. ‘‘The coaches have to be airlifted as they cannot pass through the Jawahar tunnel that leads to the valley. The biggest aircraft that IAF has — the IL-76 — could not accommodate the specially designed coaches to run on the stretch. There was no question of even trying the AN-32, which is comparatively small,’’ a senior official said.

The only option left was to sound some of the Central and East Asian countries, which have the the AN-124. Kazakhstan responded and agreed to provide the aircraft. These aircraft are frequently hired by the UN to transport tanks, among other paraphernalia, for peacekeeping operations.

The government’s budget for airlifting the coaches is Rs 30 crore. ‘‘We are going by the estimate that it would take about a week to transport one coach. So it would probably take about six to eight months to airlift all the coaches to Srinagar,’’ the official said. ‘‘Just the maintenance and depreciation of the track will cost the railways about Rs 240 crore annually. So it is cheaper to transport the coaches and run the train.’’

The railways had considered other options, including rolling the coaches from Chennai to some north Indian station like Jammu. ‘‘But that was not found too feasible since transporting the coaches from Jammu railway station to the airport would have been difficult,’’ he said.

But even the AN-124 will take the coaches only upto Srinagar. ‘‘(From there) it will probably have to be done by road. But again, it depends upon the roads and the infrastructure in the area,’’ he added.

With the transport of coaches sorted out, the Qazigund-Baramulla railway section will probably be completed in 2006, a full year behind the slated 2005 deadline. ‘‘The last and the most tricky Katra-Qazigund section was to be completed by 2007 but it could also run over into the next year,’’ sources said.

However, passenger trains are likely to roll out on the Jammu-Udhampur section in two months, General Manager (Northern Railway) R.R. Jaruhar said. ‘‘We plan to run four Sampark Kranti trains up to Udhampur. Just a few more coaches have to reach there and the trains will start,’’ he said.