Guwahati railway station will be transformed into next-gen station: CM

Guwahati, June 14 (IANS) Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Wednesday said that the Guwahati railway station will be transformed into a next-generation station which will have all the state-of-the-art facilities.

Sarma, while speaking at a program in Guwahati, said that Guwahati Railway Station witnesses an annual footfall of one crore passengers with a growth rate of 15-20 percent. This MoU will also lead to creating passengers' convenience along with developing a world-class railway station.

The Chief Minister said that Guwahati railway connects several places across the state and northeast region, upgradation of it into a state of art station is a long-felt need.

He said that in the last nine years in the state, 212 km of meter gauge have been converted to broad gauge in Assam. More than 200 km of rail tracks have been made double-tracked.

"Moreover, the railway is also building a dedicated freight station at Agyathuri and another railway bridge over the Brahmaputra parallel to the existing Saraighat bridge," Sarma said.

The state government has inked two Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with Railways and NRL for the construction of a second entry to Guwahati railway station and supply of high-speed diesel for Inland Water Terminal vessels.

As a part of the MoU with the Railways, Assam State Transport Corporation (ASTC) and Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) signed the agreement for the exchange of land for the construction of a second entry to Guwahati railway station which is going to be a next-generation railway station.

Under the MoU, ASTC handed over four bighas and four katas of its land to railways. In exchange, the railway has given around 20 bighas of land to ASTC at Jalukbari along NH 31.