Final concrete lining of Tunnel 14 of Sevoke – Rangpo Railway Project completed

The tunnel is about 1977 metre long and is situated in the Rangpo sub-division of Pakyong District in Sikkim. 

SANJAY AGARWAL, EOI, RANGPO, MAY 15, 2023 : Ircon International achieved another milestone on Monday by completing the final concrete lining in Tunnel No. 14 of Sevoke - Rangpo Railway Project. The tunnel is about 1977 metre long and is situated in the Rangpo sub-division of Pakyong District in Sikkim. 

Last year, in the month of February, the milestone of mining breakthrough of this tunnel was achieved and the completion of final concrete lining of the 1977 metre- long tunnel within one year is said to be a marvellous achievement by the engineers involved in this project. In March 2023, Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw inspected this tunnel and appreciated the work. 

Finally, the occasion of completion of final concrete lining has been marked as a significant event in the history of this project. Additional Member Civil Engineering, Railway Board, and Chairman and Managing Director of Ircon International B.K. Gupta with other senior officials of the Northeast Frontier Railway, Ircon International and construction agency Abir Infrastructure attended the ceremony to mark the event. 

The mining of this tunnel completed in February, 2022 was marked as the first breakthrough in tunnelling in Sevoke –Rangpo Railway project and now the tunnel has also been the first in the completion of the final concrete lining. The tunnel is located in between Kumrek and Khanikhola in the east Sikkim region and traverses through challenging geological conditions of the lesser Himalayas. 

The latest New Austrian Tunnelling Method has been adoptedfor the completion of the tunnel through challenging and vulnerable groundmass with the supervision of well experienced engineers from India along with highly experienced foreign engineers in this project. The track linking works will be the next activity going to start through this tunnel very soon. The Rangpo station. situated just after Tunnel No. T-14, is also under construction. 

On completion, it will be a commercial and tourism hub for Sikkim. This railway project will enhance the socio-economic status of the state. This new rail link project from Sevoke to Rangpo is about 45 kms long and is characterised by 14 tunnels, 22 bridges and five stations, including an underground station at Teesta Bazar in West Bengal. About 38.62 kms of the entire project alignment is passing through tunnels, accounting for about 86 percent of the entire alignment. 

Till now, about 76 percent of the tunnelling work has already been completed. The mining work has been completed in six tunnels and in a number of other tunnels the mining work is on the verge of completion. Till now, 29.3 km of tunnel mining has been completed and the final concrete lining is in progress. 

At present all the activities related to construction of tunnels, bridges and stations on this project are in progress on war footing, with the target date of completion being December 2024. During his maiden visit of Sevoke – Rangpo BG Railway Project from May 13 to 15, Additional Member Railway Board B.K. Gupta interacted with newspersons in Rangpo. 

He spoke about the challenges of the project due to difficult terrain and poor geological strata of the lesser Himalayas. He said the NF Railway and IRCON were putting in all efforts to complete the project by the deadline of December 2024 given by the Railway Minister.