Ahead of the Railway Budget, the people of Himachal Pradesh are curiously waiting to see whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi fulfils his promises made to the people of the State during the general elections 2014.
In the last 67 years, the hilly State got only 44 km of rail lines, something which is abysmally low. A train to leh remains a distant dream for the state. The announcement of strategically important Bilaspur-Manali-leh line made with great fanfare decades ago remains buried in the files so far. The same is the fate of the Rs 414 cr Greater leh Master Plan conceived long back.
The existing network of railways in the state is from the British days when they constructed Kalka-Shimla heritage link for their lavish life in a hill town and summer capital of India and identical in many ways with European settlements. The second rail head was Jogindernagar. That small-gauge line linked Pathankot with Jogindernagar for the construction of Shanan Power House, which at that time fed Punjab and New Delhi.
Himachal Pradesh had been ignored with impunity in respective railway budgets since Independence. The plans of expanding railways in the hilly state had been brushed aside by the successive railway ministers at the time of presentation of railway budgets.
This proved a great stumbling block in the way of harnessing the vast tourism potential of the panoramic hill state located in the lap of the green backdrop of snow-clad Himalayas.
Thousands of soldiers of Himachal Pradesh are serving the armed forces in different parts of the country. At present, Kalka is the nearest rail head from here where direct trains to different state capitals could prove a boon for the armed forces personnel and migrant labour for going home and coming back. But, there is no direct train from Kalka to eastern UP and Bihar or the North-East and south India.
The tourism sector in Himachal is seeking direct trains from Kalka to south India and Guwahati so that tourists from those parts of the country do not face any hassles coming to the hilly state.