The work of electrification of railway line between Haridwar to Dehradun which started conditionally in February is progressing at snail’s pace. The wiring which was laid down between Motichur and Dehradun is being repaired these days and the completion deadline has been further extended from June to the end of this year by the officials.
From luxor to Haridwar the electrification of rail line had been completed on 19 October 2015. However extension from Haridwar to Dehradun was pending because of certain NOCs pending from the authorities of Rajaji Tiger reserve.
About the progress of the work, Divisional Railway Manager Moradabad Pramod Kumar told the Pioneer, “We had hoped to finish the electrification work of railway line by June subject to the conditional clearances from forest officials. As and when the permission is granted by the forest department, we resume the work in the forest range. The major hassle was installation of line between Raiwala and Kansro forest range which was cleared in January and lopping of trees began soon after that. We hope to finish the complete work of electrification by the end of this year.”
Speaking to the Pioneer senior electrical engineer H K Sharma said, “The wiring work after Raiwala to Motichur is being repaired and as soon as consent is received, the work shall commence further.”
Notably there are many obstacles in the electrification work. For instance the forest officials have asked us to reduce the speed of the train in forest area between Raiwala and Kansro forest range to 30 km per hour. But the train cannot run less than 50 km per hour since the area has little high ascending altitude. Charging facility of the train still remains a problem which needs to be sorted out.
If all road blocks are cleared, the electric train would fetch good revenue to the Railway department and the long felt need of the commuters shall be sorted out. Hundreds of students and working professionals travel between Haridwar and Dehradun on daily basis.