Dibrugarh-Guwahati route likely to get Vande Bharat train by June 2025

Dibrugarh, Dec 4: If all goes well, the citizens in here may see the resumption of the Shatabdi Express to Guwahati from April next year. It is also likely that a Vande Bharat service may be introduced between Dibrugarh and Guwahati before June next year. These were revealed to a group of citizens by the railway officials here on Tuesday.

The meeting was also attended by Dibrugarh district administration officials and administrators of the Dibrugarh Municipal Corporation, including Mayor Dr. Saikat Patra and Deputy Mayor Ujjal Phukan, and local MLA Prasanta Phukan. The mayor and the Deputy Mayor of the municipal corporation here are ad hoc nominees, as civic elections have not been held here after the municipal board was 'upgraded' to a corporation last year.

At the meeting, the railway officials gave an outline of the passenger train services that are shortly to be augmented from the city. These include the reintroduction of the Brahmaputra Mail from here and the resumption of intra-state services like the train to Tezpur (Dekargaon), the local train services to Ledo and Dangori, Simaluguri, etc.

They explained that the Banipur terminal station is functioning way beyond its capacity and that the long-term plan is to have augmented services from the city's other stations at Chaulkhowa, Dhamalgaon, Lepetkata, and maybe even Lahowal. The capacity of the Banipur (station code DBRG) terminal was for operating sixteen trains a day.

But this station is now servicing 36 trains a day, which is said to be a big operational challenge for the railways every day. To somewhat ease this situation, much hope is lying in the recommencement of services from the Dibrugarh Town (station code DBRT) station. Already much support infrastructure development work is underway towards this end.

Interestingly, the BJP camp in the city seems bent on scrapping the DBRT station, saying the station's premises will be required for building vehicle parking space. They are also saying that the railway track from Gabharupathaar to the station campus is now a grave danger for the students of schools and colleges located along the KC Gogoi Road (Khalihamari Road). The railway tracks have been there since 1871, and the schools and colleges sprang up in the locality after 1945.

Now these schools and colleges have no public transport to carry their students and teachers. Their campuses are not made available for vehicular circulation to ease the chronic road congestion. And so these leaders want the railway lines and the old station to be scrapped. While such hare-brained thinking would have been scoffed at anywhere else, those proposing the wrapping up of train infrastructure in the city have no remorse for their wayward ideation.

Several civil society elders and citizens from different strata of society on Tuesday spoke strongly for the retention of the DBRT station and advocated its development as a world-class station. A few citizens also told this newspaper that the old DBRT station should be developed as a suburban service hub for the entire upper Assam.

Our Bureau