Patna–Digha Ghat line was a

railway line Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of land transport, next to road ...

connecting Patna Junction and Digha Ghat railway station in the

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

n city of

Patna Patna (; , ISO 15919, ISO: ''Paṭanā''), historically known as Pataliputra, Pāṭaliputra, is the List of state and union territory capitals in India, capital and largest city of the state of Bihar in India. According to the United Nations, ...

. It was constructed by the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

in 1862, and functioned intermittently. The railway line was revived in 1962–63 and 2004 by the then Indian Railway Ministers,

Jagjivan Ram Jagjivan Ram (5 April 1908 – 6 July 1986), popularly known as Babuji, was an Indian independence activist and politician who served as a minister with various portfolios for over 30 years, making him the List of longest-serving members of the ...

and

Lalu Prasad Yadav Lalu Prasad (born 11 June 1948) is an Indian politician who served as the chief minister of Bihar from 1990 to 1997 with a brief interruption in 1995 and as the union minister for Railways from 2004 to 2009. He is the founder and president o ...

, respectively.

Passenger train A passenger train is a train used to transport people along a railroad line, as opposed to a freight train that carries goods. These trains may consist of unpowered passenger railroad cars (also known as coaches or carriages) push-pull train, ...

operations on the route were economically unviable due to low ridership. However, trains continued to run on the railway line in order to prevent encroachment. In August 2018, the railway line along with the surrounding land was transferred to the Bihar state government, which plans to convert it into a four- to six-lane roadway to ease traffic congestion in the city. The project is scheduled to be completed by mid-2021.

Indian Railways Indian Railways is a state-owned enterprise that is organised as a departmental undertaking of the Ministry of Railways (India), Ministry of Railways of the Government of India and operates India's national railway system. , it manages the fou ...

got around of land on Hardinge Road from

Bihar government The chief minister of Bihar serves as the head of the Government of Bihar, overseeing its administration and governance within the constitutional framework of India. While the Governor of Bihar holds the ceremonial role of the constitutional ...

in lieu of the 7 km long Patna–Digha Ghat line land it offered to the latter for the construction of R-Block-Digha Road.

History

The Patna Junction–Digha Ghat rail track was laid in 1862 during the British Raj. The railway line was constructed to ease the transportation of leather items and footwear products to and from the Bata factory situated at

Digha Digha (), is a seaside resort town in the state of West Bengal, India. It lies in Purba Medinipur district and at the northern end of the Bay of Bengal. The town has a low gradient with a shallow sand beach. It is a popular sea resort in India ...

. The railway line was revived in 196263 by Jagjivan Ram, the then railway minister of India, citing the historical importance of the line. The passenger train service continued until 1974, with goods trains running on the railway line until the early 1990s. Subsequently, the track remained non–functional until July 2004 when the Minister of Railways, Lalu Prasad Yadav, restarted the shuttle-train service along the line.

Route

The Patna–Digha Ghat railway line is long. It runs from Patna Junction railway station to Digha Ghat railway station, passing through the five railway stations ( Rajiv Nagar,

Shivpuri Shivpuri, previously known as Sipri, is a town and a municipality in Shivpuri district, located in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. It is in the Gwalior Division of northwest Madhya Pradesh and is the administrative headquarters o ...

, Punaichak, Bailey Road and

Secretariat Secretariat may refer to: * Secretariat (administrative office) * Secretariat (horse) Secretariat (March 30, 1970 – October 4, 1989), also known as Big Red, was a champion American thoroughbred horse racing, racehorse who was the ninth winn ...

) and the busy road-intersection of Hartali Mor on the way. The railway line is within the

East Central Railway zone The East Central Railway (abbreviated ECR) is one of the 19 railway zones in India. It is headquartered at and comprises , , , and divisions. History First set up on 8 September 1996 with headquarters at Hajipur, Bihar, East Central R ...

of the

and is among the oldest rail lines in the zone.

Operations

Historically, the railway line has been used to transport raw materials to the Bata factory at Digha and finished leather goods from the factory to different locations. After

independence Independence is a condition of a nation, country, or state, in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the status of ...

, the railway track was used to provide connectivity to the

Food Corporation of India The Food Corporation of India (FCI) is a public sector company. It is under the ownership of Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, formed by the enactment of Food Corporation Act, 1964 by the Parliament of India. Its t ...

godown A warehouse is a building for storing goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial parks on the outskirts of cities, to ...

in Digha. Following the revival of the railway track in 1962–63, a seven-

coach Coach may refer to: Guidance/instruction * Coach (sport), a director of Athletes' training and activities * Coaching, the practice of guiding an individual through a process ** Acting coach, a teacher who trains performers Transportation * Coac ...

passenger train powered by a

steam engine A steam engine is a heat engine that performs Work (physics), mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a Cylinder (locomotive), cyl ...

was used to move passengers from Patna to Digha in the morning and from Digha to Patna in the evening. Flooding of the railway track in 1975 led to the railway line becoming non–operational. In July 2004, then Railway Minister of India Lalu Prasad Yadav inaugurated a

Diesel multiple unit A diesel multiple unit or DMU is a multiple-unit train powered by on-board diesel engines. A DMU requires no separate locomotive, as the engines are incorporated into one or more of the carriages. Diesel-powered single-unit railcars are also ...

(DMU) train service named ''Shaheed Express'' on the revived Patna–Digha Ghat line from the R–Block halt railway station. The DMU train service was introduced in order to reduce traffic congestion on city roads.

Problems and closing

The trains on the route ran during peak hours, which caused traffic-jams when they passed through the

railway crossing A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road, path, or (in rare situations) airport runway, at the same level, as opposed to the railway line or the road etc. crossing over or under using an overpass or tunnel. The t ...

s at the busy Hartali Mor intersection. As of 2017, Indian Railways incurred a loss of about

₹ The Indian rupee sign ⟨₹⟩ is the currency symbol for the Indian rupee (ISO 4217: INR), the official currency of India. Designed by D. Udaya Kumar, it was presented to the public by the Government of India on 15 July 2010, following its ...

lakh A lakh (; abbreviated L; sometimes written lac) is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand (100,000; scientific notation: 105). In the Indian 2, 2, 3 convention of digit grouping, it is written as 1,00,000. F ...

s () per month operating train on the track, with the ticket-sales bringing in only around ₹7,800 ($110) per month. However, despite the operational losses, fear of encroachment on the railway track and the approximately of land around it led Indian Railways to continue running trains on the line. In 2009–10, the

Bihar Bihar ( ) is a states and union territories of India, state in Eastern India. It is the list of states and union territories of India by population, second largest state by population, the List of states and union territories of India by are ...

state government proposed converting the Patna–Digha Ghat railway line into a roadway that would reduce traffic-congestion in the city. The railway ministry asked for ₹896

crore Crore (; abbreviated cr) denotes the quantity ten million (107) and is equal to 100 lakh in the Indian numbering system. In many international contexts, the decimal quantity is formatted as 10,000,000, but when used in the context of the India ...

s ($127 million) as value for the land it owned, and after the intervention of the

Patna High Court The Patna High Court of Judicature at Patna (commonly known as Patna High Court) is the High Courts of India, High Court of the Indian state, state of Bihar. It was established on 3 February 1916 by British colonial government and was later aff ...

, a transfer-price of ₹222

s ($32 million) was agreed upon. On 14 June 2018, the Ministry of Railways gave in-principle approval for the plan, and on August 12 the land was formally transferred in a ceremony attended by railway minister

Piyush Goyal Piyush Vedprakash Goyal (born 13 June 1964) is an Indian politician who is serving as Ministry of Commerce and Industry (India), Minister of Commerce and Industry since 2019. He also served as Minister of Textiles (India), Minister of Textiles ...

and chief-minister of Bihar,

Nitish Kumar Nitish Kumar (born 1 March 1951) is an Indian politician who has been serving as the 22nd chief minister of Bihar since 22 February 2015, having previously held the office from 2005 to 2014 and for a short period in 2000. He is Bihar's longest ...

. The state government plans to build a four- to six-lane, 40m wide, road along the 8km route, including a flyover and an underpass. The construction for the project is expected to begin by January 2019, and be completed by mid-2021.

Notes

References