IRCON hands over Jaynagar-Kurtha cross border rail section to Nepal

NewDelhi: Ircon International Limited (IRCON), a PSU under the Ministry of Railways has handed over the newly commissioned cross-border rail section from Jaynagar to Kurtha to the government of Nepal. The handing over ceremony took place last week on October 22. Ambassador of India to Nepal Vinay Mohan Kwatra and Minister for Physical Infrastructure and Transport, Government of Nepal  Renu Kumar Yadav were present at the occasion.

On behalf of IRCON, the company's Project Head Ravi Sahai and Executive Director Surender Singh handed over the project to Nepal Railway Company Limited's Managing Director (MD) Niranjan Kumar Jha and Deepak Kumar Bhattarai, Director General, Department of Railways.

Under the grant assistance from the Government of India and MoU signed with the Nepal Government to undertake Indo-Nepal Cross Border Railway Projects, the work of Jaynagar (India) to Bardibas (Nepal) rail line project was entrusted to IRCON.

The first phase of the 34.9 Km Jaynagar (India) – Kurtha (Nepal) section is part of 68.72 KmJaynagar-Bijalpura-Bardibas rail link being built under the Government of India grant assistance of NPR 8.77 Billion. This section was earlier a narrow-gauge rail link between Jayanagar and Bijalpura. There are eight stations and halts on the Jaynagar-Kurtha section, which includes the historically important station of Janakpur.

Speaking on the occasion IRCON's Chairman & Managing Director Yogesh Kumar Misra said "This cross‐border rail link is a significant milestone, which will take Indo‐Nepal cooperation to a new level. Soon to be operationalised, this would be the first broad gauge (BG) cross‐border rail link between India and Nepal which would further boost relations between the two neighbouring countries".

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