The Northeastern Frontier Railway (NFR) has clarified that there will be no extension of the Darjeeling Mail’s route to Alipurduar. The train will continue to run between NJP (in Siliguri) and Sealdah, it said, amid protests, counter protests and demonstrations in Siliguri, Alipurduar, Cooch Behar and Jalpaiguri for the past few days for and against the purported decision of the authorities to extend the route of the prestigious train to Alipurduar via Cooch Behar and Jalpaiguri.
The hullabaloo gained pace, especially after political leaders and state ministers raised their voices along with the local people. North Bengal development minister Rabindranath Ghosh, who hails from Cooch Behar, and Alipurduar Trinamul Congress MLA Sourav Chakrabarty have voiced their support for the extension, while Siliguri mayor and MLA Asok Bhattacharya, and Matigara- Naxalbari MLA and Darjeeling district Congress (Plains) Shankar Malakar threatened to launch movements if steps were taken to extend the train’s route.
Many residents and organisations were also set to launch movements. “The NFR authority would like to make it clear that no such decision has been taken to extend the Darjeeling Mail train upto Alipurduar,” chief public relations officer of the NFR, Pranav Jyoti Sharma, said on Sunday.
Explaining the NFR stance, Mr Sharma said: “It may be mentioned that Darjeeling Mail is a popular train of the region with primary maintenance at Sealdah Division of the Eastern Railway. Extension of the train would involve Eastern Railway also due to possible changes in timings etc, which would be required if the train moved to Alipurduar.
Moreover the BG-III section of the Alipurduar Division, ie the route via Sevok, New Mal Junction etc, has a large number of speed restrictions due to elephant movement; which would result in the train taking much time to go to Alipurduar from NJP and back.” Therefore, no issue of extension of the train is under consideration, he said.