Nepalese people would soon –maybe within the next two years - be able to board trains from railway stations within their country and arrive at cities like Kolkata, Patna, Lucknow Mumbai or Delhi without changing trains en route including the border towns.

Traders too would be able to send their export cargoes from towns in Nepal direct to mainly the Kolkata port without unloading and re-loading their wares at border stations once direct broad gauge (1676 millimeters ) services lines are constructed to connect towns in Nepal with the border BG railway stations in India, mostly in
Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

The Ministry of External Affairs of the Government of India is at present conducting preliminary engineering and traffic surveys on five such routes – New Jalpaiguri (NJP) to Kakarbhitta via Panitanki, Jogbani to Biratnagar, Nautanwa to Bhairahawa, on upgrading the current narrow gauge line (720 mm) from Jainagar in Bihar to Bijalpura
with extension to Baridibas in Nepal, and the Nepalgunj Road (India) – to Nepalgunj (Nepal).

The Ministry has accorded priority to the conversion of the
Jainagar-Janakpur-Bijalpura-Baridibas narrow gauge line to broad gauge and connecting Jogbani in Purnea district of Bihar to Biratnagar, Nepal's second most important town after Kathmandu and an important trade and industry hub.

Very recently, the Minister of Railways, Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav inaugurated the newly converted Katihar to Jagbani section of the Northeast Frontier Railway (105 km) which was welcomed with open arms by more Nepalis than Indians. Biratnagar is only about five kilometers from Jogbani (the border being hardly half a kilometer from Jagbani) and this conversion enables people and goods for export to proceed straight to Kolkata without change from metre to broad gauge rolling stock en route.

The NJP to Kakabhitta line would open a new route to Kolkata (via NJP, Kishanganj, Farakka, Bardhaman) on the one hand and the entire north-eastern area of India on the other. Lakhs of Nepali-speaking people live in India's north-east, from Darjeeling and Sikkim to Manipur.

The Nautanwa-Bhairahawa link, when completed, will enable passengers bound for Kathmandu by air, to travel from stations on the Indian railway system such as Delhi and Lucknow. This line will enable Buddhist tourists from all over the world to travel upto Bhairahawa from India without changing trains, for onward journey to Lumbini, the
birthplace of Lord Buddha, a few kilometers to the west.

The Nepalgunj Road (North Eastern Railway) to Nepalganj in Nepal will be of only a few kilometers length and will be a convenient line for people traveling to and from western Nepal districts.

Actually, all these lines are expected to be linked to the broad gauge railway line in Nepal extending from the eastern end of the country to the western end, about 800 kilometres away, if and when such a line is constructed in Nepal The present government in Nepal has already expressed its desire to have a broad gauge, east-west, railway line with, everyone hopes, co-operation from India.

Incidentally, there is no mention of a line from Raxaul (Bihar) to Birgunj in central Nepal which is connected by road to Kathmandu, the national capital. This is because India has already undertaken a survey for a broad gauge railway line between Birgunj and Kathmandu, which may have a length of 117 kilometres only.

While India has undertaken construction of these border link lines, China has already expressed its intention to extend the Beijing - Lhasa railway line (standard gauge, 1435 mm) to the border town of Khasha in Tibet, only a few kilometers from the Nepalese border town of Kodari. In 1967, China had completed a road link between Kathmandu
and Kodari, now a popular highway of nearly 150 kilometres which tourists take to reach Lhasa from Kathmandu. Kodari-Khasa-Lhasa should be another 150 kms.

The Nepalis call this road the Arniko highway, in memory of an Architect who is credited with introducing the tiered or the pagoda style of temples, peculiar to the Kathmandu Valley, and who had traveled to China to build similar temples and other architectural wonders in that country.

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