The Ministry of Railways has deputed a six-member Railway Board team to Kathmandu from 11–12 June for the 8th Joint Working Group and 10th Project Steering Committee meetings on India–Nepal cross-border railway corridors. Agenda items include land-acquisition hurdles on the 69-km Jaynagar–Bardibas line and final alignment of the 18.6-km Jogbani–Biratnagar link, both critical for moving people and goods between Bihar and southeastern Nepal. The delegation, headed by Executive Director (Traffic Transportation) Avinash Kumar Mishra, will also discuss passenger-service standards, immigration procedures at joint stations and the possibility of through-ticketing that would let Indian pilgrims ride a single train from Varanasi to Janakpur. Nepal is pushing for Indian technical support to electrify sections that have been built to diesel specifications. Cross-border rail is a strategic mobility enabler: once complete, the Jaynagar–Bardibas route could cut road-journey times by four hours and carry an estimated 300,000 Indian and Nepalese passengers yearly. Logistics firms anticipate new parcel-express services that would shave days off e-commerce deliveries into Nepal’s Terai region. However, procurement delays and monsoon flooding have plagued the projects. Both sides are expected to approve a joint disaster-management protocol and adopt India’s IRCTC e-ticketing backbone for cross-border bookings. Mobility managers should note that initial services may operate as ‘sealed-coaches’ with immigration cleared at origin to avoid long halts at the border. If timelines hold, trial passenger runs could begin by December 2026, providing a rail alternative to overcrowded land crossings at Raxaul–Birgunj and Sonauli–Bhairahawa.
Source: PSU Connect (news snippet)
