Guwahati, July 15 (IANS)The Bairabi-Sairang railway line, which would connect Mizoram’s capital city Aizawl with the huge Indian railway network, will boost the economy, trade, connectivity and tourism in the northeastern region, officials said on Tuesday.

Mizoram Chief Minister Lalduhoma on Monday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi at his official residence in New Delhi and also invited him to formally inaugurate the newly completed 51.38 km long Bairabi-Sairang railway line and the new Sairang Railway Station.

An official of the Mizoram Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) had said that the Prime Minister expressed his willingness to do so in person, subject to the availability of time in his schedule.

After the inauguration of the vital Bairabi-Sairang new railway project, Mizoram’s Aizawl would be the fourth capital city in the northeast region to be connected by a railway network after Assam, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh.

A senior official of the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) said that the line is already set to be extended to the Myanmar border, some 232 km away from Aizawl.

“Such a future expansion would not only increase the level of regional trade, but it would also boost the security of a country along a sensitive border. It is an immense project that benefits the cross-border connectivity of the Indian country in the Indo-Pacific region,” the official said.

He said that the specially designed Vistadome coaches are also to be introduced in this scenic railway by Indian Railways.

According to the official, these coaches would have glass ceilings and a 360-degree view of the beautiful landscape of Mizoram, along with the Reiek Hills and Vantawng Falls and Tam Dil Lake and the Dampa Tiger Reserve. This is likely to be a new phase of tourism in Mizoram and make it a major place of visit in the northeast region, he said.

The NFR official said that the new rail connection takes a dramatic cut in travel time; the Bairabi-Aizawl itinerary, which was previously serviced in a five to six-hour-long drive, is currently covered in 1.5 hours.

This reduces the costs of transport, increases trade and access to health care, education and opportunities.

“Students, farmers, and traders would now get an easier path to markets and institutions all over India. The project is also a strategic win to the Act East Policy of India and the PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan, which is attempting to connect all the state capitals in the northeast via rail,” the official pointed out.

The Bairabi-Sairang railway line includes 48 tunnels covering a length of 12.85 km and was too costly to construct as it had to push its way through solid rock and unstable hillsides-nearly one-third of all the distance is penetrated by the line.

The route has a total of 142 bridges, of which bridge number 196 is the tallest, reaching up to 104 metres, the tallest railway pier in Mizoram, even taller than Qutub Minar in Delhi.

Almost 44 per cent of the line had to be blasted through mountains, and this was more complicated by the construction windows, which happened to be short because of the monsoon-prone weather of the region.

The new railway line was commissioned in June 2025. It took a 26-year operation to bring the line into reality, and it is one of the examples of the political will, engineers to design great work and the hope of the isolated region to become connected, the railway official said.

–IANS

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