News courtesy The Telegraph.
Siliguri, March 19: The New Delhi
Mrinalini Sharma
Siliguri, March 19: The
“The Unesco New Delhi office has indeed expressed concerns
regarding the current status of the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway affected by
several landslides. However, there is no official warning as such nor attempt
to remove its heritage tag — this being the task of the Intergovernmental
Committee of the World Heritage Convention…” Moe Chiba, programme specialist
for culture, Unesco, New Delhi
Last week, Unesco officials held a meeting with the Indian
Railways where the UN body took up the matter.
The hill railway comes under the Indian Railways and the
heritage tag was bestowed on the DHR 14 years ago.
The Kurseong-Siliguri section of the DHR has been
non-operational since June 2010 after a landslide damaged a 500m stretch of
NH55 at 14th Mile near Paglajhora, 30km from here. The DHR tracks running
parallel to the highway were also swept away in the slide.
Another landslide at Tindharia, 5km from Paglajhora along
NH55, damaged the tracks in September 2011 and has put at risk the 100-year-old
Tindharia Locomotive Works — the hill railway’s workshop.
In June last year, another landslide at the same spot
damaged a portion of the workshop.
The DHR authorities said Unesco was not happy with the lack
of initiative from the Indian Railways to restore the damaged rail lines and
the workshop.
The hill railway officials said restoration of the tracks
could start after the Union ministry of surface transport and highways repairs
NH55.
“The delay in restoration of the DHR tracks is because of
the delay in the repair of NH55. We are ready to start repairing the tracks as
soon as we get a green light from the Union ministry of surface transport and
highways. Unesco has been asking the railway officials to start restoring the
tracks. But we are unable to do so until the highway is repaired completely,” a
DHR official said.
On March 12, Adhir Chowdhury, the Union minister of state
for railways, had announced an allotment of Rs 83 crore for repairing the toy
train tracks.
“The situation is, however, very complex and one cannot
simply blame the Indian Railways for not having taken immediate step after the
landslides, because many parts of the land where DHR is found is under the
jurisdiction of several other ministries,” Chiba wrote in the email.
The 132-year-old DHR is the second narrow-gauge railway in
the world after Semmering Railway in Austria
It is the first in the country to be bestowed a Unesco World
Heritage Status in November 1999.
The DHR line between New Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling
But as the Kurseong-Siliguri stretch is shut, DHR services
are available only on the Kurseong-Darjeeling stretch.
It is mandatory for all Unesco heritage sites to be maintained
by a comprehensive conservation and management plan (CCMP),a master-document
outlining the conservation, management and sustainable development of heritage
sites.
The Indian Railways sanctioned funds for preparing a CCMP
for the DHR in 2009, 10 years after it got a heritage status.
“Unesco usually works in support of the government to find a
solution; Unesco has been in talk with the ministry of railway since 2009 to
find measures to develop a comprehensive site management plan to ensure the
protection of the heritage value of the DHR,” Chiba wrote.
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