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After 43 years, Indian railways to enter Sikkim, closer to Indo-Chinese border

After decades of waiting, Indian railways took a giant leap. If all goes planned, the railways will soon enter the region close to Indian-Chinese border. Railways will enter the Himalayan state of Sikkim after a never-ending wait of 43 years. 

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After decades of waiting, Indian railways took a giant leap. If all goes planned, the railways will soon enter the region close to Indian-Chinese border. Railways will enter the Himalayan state of Sikkim after a never-ending wait of 43 years. 

After the railways' entry into the Sikkim region, the locals will be benefitted majorly. The proposed link will facilitate faster military movement towards Sino Indian border that the Himalayan state hosts. 

According to a report in the Economic Times, the project was awaiting the nod from the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) as an NOC was required to cross the most of the areas in Gorakhaland. 

The report claimed that the project has already got thumbs up from the Central government and concerned authorities. 

Around 51 km of the line will pass through Gorkhaland while the remaning section would be in Sikkim.

The estimated Rs 6,000 crore worth broad gauge track will have only 1 km stretch within Sikkim leaving rest 51.7 km in the hilly Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts of Bengal, the report said. 

The move gains significance as the two Asian giants were locked in a 70-day stand-off at Doklam Plateau at the Indo-Tibet-Bhutan tri-junction last year.

At present, Sikkim has been connected with rest of India through only National Highway 10 which oftenly gets blocked as the area is highly prone to landslides. 

The estimated cost of the project reportedly will be Rs 1,339.48 crore. 

Meanwhile, the railway ministry has decided to take all its big ticket projects rejected by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last month back to him for reconsideration, sources in the ministry said on Wednesday. 

The sources also said though the prime minister has rejected three of the ministry's ambitious projects - 100 per cent electrification of the track network, modernisation of signalling system at an estimated cost of Rs 78,000 crore, and plan to convert the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus into the first museum-cum-railway stations in India -- efforts were being made to convince Modi that these projects were viable.

"Our electrification project is on schedule and we have completed a major portion of it. We will try and convince the PM that we can go ahead with it," the source told PTI.

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