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Darjeeling, July 8: The railways has sanctioned Rs 30 crore for the hills and has promised an equal sum in the next one-and-a-half years in tune with Mamata Banerjee's assurance when she was in charge of the ministry last year that the region would be on her priority list.
Keshav Chandra, the general manager of Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR), today said Rs 17 crore had been sanctioned for setting up a composite manufacturing unit at Tindharia along with Rs 9 crore to upgrade the railway hospital in the same place.
“A multi-functional complex will also come up at the Darjeeling railway station and the project cost is estimated to touch the Rs 1 crore mark,” said Chandra, who had inspected the railbus line from Siliguri Junction to Bagdogra yesterday.
The factory at Tindharia, 60km from Darjeeling town, will manufacture “filter for diesel locomotives” and “composite brake blocks” for coaches.
“We are trying to bring in international technology for the brake block unit while modern machinery for the filter unit has already been ordered,” said Chandra.
The RITES (Rail India Technical and Economic Services) has also been given the directive to set up the multi-functional complex at the Darjeeling railway station where around 15-20 shops will be leased out. “We were initially looking at setting up a budget hotel at the multifunctional complex. But later we thought it would be better to set up the budget hotel in another place and have already identified two sites, one of which is around 1000 square metres and the other 200 square metres,” said Chandra.
The railways have also set up a camp office of the Railway Recruitment Board in Darjeeling. “It has been made functional and an officer has been stationed in Darjeeling for the RRB. Application forms and other related information on the railways will now be available in this office,” said Chandra.
The official said the department had already issued advertisements to enrol aspirants for the railways’ skill training institutes in the hills.
“We have a printing press in Kurseong, a 100-year old (toy train) workshop in Tindharia and a maintenance department here. We plan to start training the youths in the next two months especially in skills related to the railway units,” said Chandra.
The Kurseong printing press will also be overhauled too. “We are in the process of getting latest machineries for the Kurseong,” said the official.
The press prints all kinds of stationery for the entire Northeast Frontier Railway, including manually generated tickets for toy trains that are in great demand among lovers of the Darjeeling Himalayan Railways.
The railways have also started the ground work to start a nursing institute in Kurseong.
“Apart from the women, the institute will also train male nurses,” he said.
The department is looking at completing “small projects” like expansion of the Darjeeling railway station and upgrade of the Kurseong printing press in the next “six months”.
“As far as the bigger projects are concerned we are confident that it will be completed within the next one-and-a-half years,” said Chandra.
One of the long-term projects of the railways is the revival of the ropeway from Judge Bazar to Bijanbari.
“The ropeway has been defunct for the past 20-25 years. Earlier it used to carry goods but we are looking at opening it for tourist by converting into a passenger ropeway,” he said.
Asked if encroachment at Judge Bazar in the heart of Darjeeling would come in the way of the ropeway, Chandra said: “Encroachment is there but I do not think it is a major problem. If people understand that we are giving them something good they will make way for us. In fact, we have already started getting such feelers as people want the ropeway to be made functional.”
The ropeway had been built by the London-based British Ropeway Engineering Company Limited early in the last century.
-The Telegraph
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