Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Wednesday did aerial survey of Jiribam-Imphal new line project in Manipur. The project also includes country’s longest train tunnel, connecting Imphal with Guwahati. Goods train are expected to start services upto Kaimai Road railway station by the end of this month. During his visit to Guwahati on Wednesday, Vaishnaw announced that the tourist circuit trains will be introduced in the northeast, covering all prominent locations of the region.According to a release issued by the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR), Vaishnaw, who visited Guwahati on Tuesday, also said that a study to increase rail connectivity in the northeastern states was underway.Promoting the rich heritage of northeast and showcasing its beautiful culture to the entire world has been an endeavour of the Railways, Vaishnaw said. He pointed out that five Vistadome services have already been introduced towards the goal of giving tourism a boost in the region.He added that studies are being conducted to establish strategic railway lines to highlight the beauty of northeast, and start more passenger, intercity and Jan Shatabdi Express-like trains. The release said the minister also underlined that electrification of railway track has been completed up to Guwahati and further work is in progress.Maintaining that there was no shortage of funds, Vaishnaw said Rs 7,000 crore has been allocated this year for the ongoing railway projects in northeast. Vaishnaw, who also holds the communications, electronics and IT portfolio, stated that work to provide high speed Internet in the entire region is going on.“An out-of-the-box experiment was conducted for 10 GB internet connectivity from Coxbazar international landing station (Bangladesh) to Agartala through BSNL. The experiment has been extremely successful and now we will be further extending this,” he said. The minister stated that efforts to equip every village of northeast with digital telecom connectivity are in progress.“Scientific survey and GIS mapping are on to identify locations for telecom connectivity in every village,” he added.COUNTRY’S LONGEST TRAIN TUNNEL: ALL YOU NEED TO KNOWThe Indian Railways is constructing the country’s longest train tunnel connecting Imphal with Guwahati.The new rail line route, under the high-earthen mountains, is 111-km-long, from Jiribam to Imphal.Around 62 km of this rail line will pass through the tunnel being built under the North Frontier Railway. The government is planning to commence the operations by 2023.Bridge no.53 in the Jiribam-Imphal New Line Project has been constructed on the river Barak; the largest river of Manipur. The bridge is situated at a difficult location where the height of the tallest Piers is as high as 75m (higher than Qutub Minar). pic.twitter.com/NOknAKm4AX— Ministry of Railways (@RailMinIndia) July 11, 2021The work is being carried out under the National Capital Connectivity.The total length of this rail route is close to 111 km of which at least 62 km will pass through the tunnel. The total length of all the bridges on this line is 3.5 km. There will be 10 stations on the entire railway route.Read all the Latest News, Breaking News and Coronavirus News here.