Srinagar,October 27 (Vijay Kumar) – Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is inaugrating the Anantnag-Qazigund section of the prestigious Kashmir rail link project,India’s highest broad guage rail station at Qazigund in South Kashmir at an altitude of 1,722 metres on Wedensday (Ocotober 28).With opening of the 18-km line, the Valley will be linked to its capital Srinagar and other important places, and the trains are expected to chug at a speed of 100 km per hour.
Official sources said besides PM, who will flag off the new train service and the new section at Anantnag station, several Union Ministers including Ghulam Nabi Azad, Dr Farooq Abdullah and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah will attend the inaugural ceremony. Congress president Sonia Gandhi is also expected to attend the function, sources said.
Senior J&K Ministers Peerzada Muhammad Sayeed and Ms. Sakina Itoo and Ministers of State, Nasir Aslam Aslam Wani and Javid Ahmad Dar visited Anantnag Railway station to take an overview of the arrangements being made by the administration for the visit of the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh and inauguration of Anantnag-Qazigund railway track by him on Wedensday.
The team of Ministers went to the place of formal inauguration of the track and reviewed the arrangements. They also went through the podium and also saw the arrangements being made for the media for the coverage of the event.
The Ministers gave on the spot instructions about further improving the arrangements. They directed the administration that while maintaining the security at the venue people should not feel any sort of discomfort. They directed availability of drinking water and hassle free traffic management at the venue.
The Ministers said plying of rail in Kashmir was a dream come true and appealed people and administration to make this historic event a grand success.
MLC, Altaf Kaloo, senior civil and Police officers of Anantnag, Pulwama and Kulgam accompanied the Ministers.
Later, the Ministers reviewed the arrangements of PM’s visit in an officers meeting where they were briefed about the arrangements.Meanwhile
Meanwhile both state police and para-military forces across the Kashmir valley have been put on high alert with firm instructions to foil any militant attempt to cause disturbances during the two-day visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from tomorrow. A thick blanket of security has been thrown around the Anantnag district and security personnel have adopted stringent measures to avoid any untoward incident,
With the opening of the line, the Railways have completed 119 km long Qazigund-Baramulla section of the Kashmir rail project.The section has about 113 minor and major bridges of which the 435-metre-long Veith river bridge is the longest. It took almost nine years to complete the Baramulla-Qazigund rail project, which started in 2000.