The Swiss Glacier Express route from Zermatt to St Moritz is considered a journey worth experiencing at least once in one’s lifetime. The upcoming Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link or USBRL is about to surpass it, becoming one of the world’s most fascinating train routes. It is unique in many ways, featuring India’s first cable-stayed rail bridge and only broad-gauge hill railway track. The route also includes over a hundred kilometres of tunnels, the longest of which is 12.77 km long, and dozens of rail bridges, including the highest and tallest anywhere in the world.
Scenic views along the train ride are reminiscent of the ’60s and ’70s Bollywood movies—snow-capped mountain ranges, cascading rivers, and dense Deodar and pine forests. The rail link will likely begin regular services in the first week of February.
By allowing an overnight journey from Delhi to Srinagar, the new route will provide a fillip to tourism in Jammu and Kashmir. More significantly, it will provide a great stimulus to trade and commerce, job creation, and health and education in the region, also facilitating more efficient strategic movements to the borders.
Further, every single train in the Valley has the potential to reduce the use of road vehicles, cleaning the air and bringing down the region’s carbon footprint. A container train loaded with apples would not only take the produce to markets all over the country but also reduce inefficient and polluting movement of road lorries.
Connecting the Kashmir Valley with the rest of India by rail, USBRL is perhaps India’s most ambitious and significant infrastructure project in recent years.
A 30-year history
The British, who left a sizable rail network of over 50,000 km at the time of Independence, connected most of India’s hill stations by railway, including Darjeeling, Ooty, Shimla, and Matheran. However, they could never attempt to connect Srinagar by rail. Interestingly, the conceptualisation for this project took place in the bungalow of the erstwhile deputy resident, William Fraser, in Delhi’s Kashmiri Gate, which houses the office of the Northern Railways USBRL Project today.
Looking back on USBRL’s 30-year history, it is evident that the project sanctioned in 1994 (USBRL 272 km) did not make much progress till 2002. Inadequate budgetary allocations were the most important factor, along with a deteriorating law and order situation in Jammu and Kashmir. In 2002, the government declared it a National Project, to be funded separately from the general exchequer.
In 2004, the Jammu-Udhampur rail line was commissioned, followed by the opening of the Srinagar valley line stretches on Anantnag-Baramulla section in 2008. By 2009, Baramulla-Qazigund had been fully commissioned, with DEMU (Diesel Electric Multiple Unit) trains providing regular services to thousands of commuters daily.
Another milestone was achieved in 2013 with the completion of an 11 km railway tunnel, piercing the mighty Pir Panjal mountain range to provide all-season connectivity from Banihal to Baramulla via Qazigund.
The Udhampur-Katra rail link was commissioned the next year, facilitating thousands of pilgrims visiting the Vaishno Devi shrine, eliminating the need for transhipment at Jammu and Udhampur. With this, only the 111-kilometre stretch spanning the challenging mountainous terrain remained to be completed.
The 2014-2024 decade saw an unprecedented push to infrastructure projects, with financial allocations and monitoring at the highest level through PRAGATI sessions. By February 2024, the Banihal-Sangaldan rail section was commissioned and opened for electrified trains.
Sangaldan-Katra, the last section of USBRL, is now complete and the first through train service from Srinagar to Delhi is due to be flagged off anytime soon.
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Terraforming prosperity
The USBRL project has had its share of controversies, specifically related to its alignment and consequential cost escalation. The MoSPI (Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation) has been flagging the project for excessive time and cost overruns, which are 261 months and 1577 per cent respectively, as per its project implementation report for March 2024. The project’s cost escalated from the original estimate of Rs 2,500 crore to the anticipated cost at completion of Rs 41,200 crore.
It is, however, obvious that this mega project was able to proceed only after a committed funding provision was established as a National Project in 2002. Inadequate financing, pending clearances from the forest and other departments, mountainous terrain located on faultlines, and law and order issues were some of the factors that caused the cost and time overruns. Another fact often overlooked is that Indian Railways constructed roads stretching over 200 km to transport personnel and material to the project alignment. This connected hundreds of villages to major towns.
The project execution reflects participation from the country’s best as well as international companies. Work was primarily undertaken by Indian Railways, its PSUs, and major private construction companies such as Afcons Infrastructure, Hindustan Construction Company, Gammon India, the Korean company Ultra Engineering, and South Africa’s Archirodon Construction. USBRL stands as a great example of successful public-private partnership.
Indian Railways is also working to connect the capitals of the Northeastern states by rail. With Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, and Tripura having been connected already, efforts are ongoing to connect the capitals of Mizoram, Manipur, and Nagaland.
It is evident that the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla rail line will be central to the integration of Jammu and Kashmir. A robust maintenance and monitoring system must therefore be in place. A state-of-the-art Operational Control System has already been put in place to monitor the Katra-Banihal section. A security protocol is also being worked out.
The Railways have historically terraformed the way we organise and grow as societies. So, USBRL is about more than just practical connectivity—it is an integrator and the realisation of a long-held dream of prosperity for Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir. Indian Railways deserves our appreciation for achieving this feat.
Mohammad Jamshed is a Distinguished Fellow at CRF and former member, Traffic, Railway Board. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)
I find too much time taken to complete the last phase. For two years, Govt has been trumpeting this. Starting tomorrow… that tomorrow has to come someday. In this age oftechnology, is it a big deal?
Its delayed because the contractor was not performing.
First time, I see posative report on The Print