Railway brass to check DHR condition... BID TO KEEP HILL RAIL'S UNESCO HERITAGE STATUS

BIRESWAR BANERJEE, TT,  27 Aug 2019, Siliguri: Senior railway officials are scheduled to visit the hills next month to check the state of affairs in the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway.

Sources in the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) said V.K. Yadav, the chairman of the Indian Railway Board, would be in the hills on September 10 and hold a meeting with railway officials and representatives of Unesco at Elysia Building, the headquarters of the DHR in Kurseong.

Unesco that has recog- nised the DHR as a world heritage site back in 1999, is currently working on the Comprehensive Conservation Management Plan (CCMP) of the DHR for better conservation of the heritage railway.

Recently, Unesco had expressed concern over the status of conservation and protection of the Himalayan railway.

"The observation of the Unesco seems to have nudged the railways. That is why the chairman and some other officials are likely to visit the hills to check out the state of affairs and also make decisions for its conservation," said a source.

Ravinder Kumar Verma, the divisional railway manager of Katihar division of Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR), who was in Siliguri Junction station on Monday, was brief when asked about the chairman's proposed visit.

"There are possibilities of chairman's (railway board) visit here. But nothing has been finalised," he said.

On Sunday evening, Verma reached New Jalpaiguri. After initial inspection of the station and its adjacent areas, he headed to Dar- jeeling on a special train of toy train on Monday.

During his visit, he mentioned that one of the major areas of concern for DHR is encroachment of both sides of the toy train track.

"I will inspect the entire stretch of toy train route from NJP to Darjeeling. We have to find a mechanism or an action plan to evacuate the encroachers from near the track. Though this is a time taking process, but we have to work with the state and local authorities to clear the encroachments from beside the tracks," the DRM said.