SILIGURI, DEC 27   :     In a move to achieve 100 percent electrification, the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) has taken up the task to get electrified all its broad gauge routes, including that of

Jalpaiguri-Haldibari, a busy section in north Bengal soon.

The NFR has taken up the task of electrification works till Haldibari,the last station o­n the India-Bangladesh border along the New Jalpaiguri-Dhaka route.

Works of the Katihar-Teznarayanpur section in Bihar is also going o­n with full thrust. The work is expected to be completed very soon in two sections of a total 63.74 Route Kilometres, an NFR official said.

In the jurisdiction of NFR, out of the total electrified routes in North-eastern region, 921.01 Km in Assam, 9.58 Km in Meghalaya and 6.00 Km in Nagaland have already been electrified. Moreover, 285.87 Km in Bihar and 744.726 Km in West Bengal have already been electrified under the jurisdiction of Northeast Frontier Railway.

The statutory inspections for these two sections of Katihar division of N.F. Railway are expected to be done very soon. The sections are Raninagar Jalpaiguri Junction – Haldibari (30.71 Route Kilometres) and Katihar Jn – Teznarayanpur (33.03 Route Kilometres) of Katihar Division.

For further speeding up the electrification works, Indian Railway Construction International Limited (IRCON), Rail India Technical and Economic Service (RITES), NFR/Construction and Central

Organisation for Railway Electrification (CORE) have been executing the electrification works in a phased manner in different sections over the zone.

“Electrification will significantly improve the mobility of trains o­n NFR and strengthen the Rail network in north-eastern states. In addition to the reduction in pollution, the financial performance of

the Railway will also improve due to the shift from fossil fuel toelectricity. This would also facilitate seamless traffic and also increase the average speed of trains resulting in punctuality of train

movement,” according to NFR spokesman Sabyasachi De.(UNI)