On the morning of 15 September, a new train chugged into Anand Vihar station in New Delhi. It was no ordinary train. Numbered 20507, it had departed from Sairang, the newest station in the Indian railway grid, on Saturday morning and reached Delhi after more than 42 hours, covering a distance of 2,512 kilometres.

This arrival was a milestone moment for Bharat. It connected the previously inaccessible state of Mizoram to the rest of the nation, bringing its capital onto the railway map. Sairang lies on the outskirts of Aizawl, Mizoram’s capital.

A Moment Of Reckoning

Two days earlier, on 13 September, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated a 51.38-kilometre railway line linking Bairabi station to the newly built Sairang station, about 20 km from Aizawl. It marked a major step in reimagining Bharat’s Northeast and accelerating Mizoram’s integration with the rest of the country.

The occasion also saw the flagging off of three new train services:

With this, Mizoram, once a remote and impenetrable region at the country’s edge, is now connected not only by railway but also by opportunity. This development heralds a new era of tourism, commerce, mobility, and deeper national integration.

Better Late Than Never

A rail link connecting Mizoram to the rest of the country had long been overdue. The idea dates back to 1979, when it was decided that every Northeast state would get at least one railway line. The post of General Manager (Construction), Northeast Frontier Railway was created to realise that vision in mission mode.

However, the dream remained unrealised for decades. Bairabi station in Mizoram, located about five kilometres inside the state near the Assam border, was built in the late 1980s as a metre-gauge station, but further progress stalled for various reasons.

Hope resurfaced in 2016 when Bairabi was upgraded to broad gauge under the 83.55 km Katakhal–Bairabi Gauge Conversion Project. It received its first freight train carrying 42 wagons of rice, and passenger services up to Bairabi were flagged off by PM Modi. That was the beginning.

A quiet rail revolution soon followed. In his first term, PM Modi revived the construction of the 51.38 km Bairabi–Sairang section. He laid the foundation in 2014, land acquisition followed in 2015, and execution began in 2015–16. The line was completed and commissioned within ten years despite numerous challenges.

It now links Mizoram to the national network via Silchar in Assam, and forms part of the ambitious 223 km Sairang–Hmawngbuchhuah railway line that aims to extend connectivity to Mizoram’s southern border, opening direct trade routes to Myanmar and Southeast Asia through the Sittwe Port.

The Boon

The new line has drastically reduced both travel time and costs for Mizoram’s residents. The Aizawl–Guwahati journey now takes 12 hours by train instead of 16 by road. Travel between Aizawl and Silchar is cut from seven hours to just three. The road travel cost from Silchar to Aizawl, a distance of about 150 km, has dropped from Rs 1,000 to under Rs 80. Meanwhile, the AC 3-tier fare to Delhi is now Rs 3,625.

Indubitably, this is a boon for Mizoram’s people, who can now access better opportunities for travel, education, employment, business, and healthcare in hubs like Delhi, Kolkata, Guwahati, and Silchar like never before.

Challenges Galore

It was a project that tested the resolve of railway personnel due to the sheer scale of challenges. The most significant among them were:

Firstly, the Survey Conundrum: With the terrain passing through towering mountains, deep gorges, and dense forests, extending the line beyond Bairabi was a humongous........

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