A comforting news for all those people who regularly travel to-and-fro between Delhi and Uttarakhand, the Uttarakhand government yesterday said it would speed up the construction of the new broad-gauge rail link between Roorkee and Muzaffarnagar in order to complete it by 2013.

The project, which when completed would shorten the distance between New Delhi and Uttarakhand considerably had previously hit a roadblock owing to tedious land acquisition process in both Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. The Government has proposed an investment of Rs 336.92 crore in the project for its speedy completion by 2013.

The Uttarakhand Government has chalked out a plan under which necessary land acquisition in the district of Hardwar would be done by September this year. According to reports, the Uttarakhand Government has already paid Rs 80 crore and the remaining Rs 40 crore would be paid in two installments of Rs 20 crore each.

The Roorkee-Muzaffarnagar project was sanctioned in the Union Budget 2007-08. It is 28.48 km long with 11.35 km falling under Uttarakhand and 17.13 km in UP. The railways took up the project and began the land acquisition process. The status of land acquisition is at different stages in both the states. This project is being executed on cost sharing basis with 50 per cent of the cost being shared by the state government and 50 percent by the railways. In the original plan, the railway line was to come straight from Muzaffarnagar to Roorkee but following the request of Deoband residents, Deoband was also added to the line.
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