Minister of Physical Infrastructure and Transport Prakash Jwala inaugurated the railway service along the Kurtha-Bijalapura section of the Jayanagar-Bijalpura railway amid a function organised at Bijalpura in Mahottari district on Sunday. The cross-border rail service came into operation after two decades.

After the inauguration function, the passenger train set off for Jayanagar, India, through the Bhangaha Bijalpura train station. According to the Nepal Railway Company Limited, the train will return to Bhangaha Bijalpura on the same day.

“The railway company has been successful in extending train service to Bhangaha Bijalpura station within around 15 months of the operation of the railway service in Janakpur. Although it is scheduled to operate a train once a day the service could be expanded as per the people’s demands,” said Niranjan Kumar Jha, general manager of the Nepal Railway Company Limited.

The Kurtha-Bijalapura rail section was constructed by the Indian Railway Construction International Limited. The company handed over the rail line to the Nepal Railway Company Limited on June 1.

The then prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi had flagged off the Kurtha-Janakpur-Jayanagar train, officially announcing the cross-border railway services between the two countries, in April last year. The railway service is being operated twice a day along the 35-km Kurtha-Janakpur-Jayanagar section.

The 69-km Jayanagar-Janakpur-Bardibas railway is being built at a cost of Rs10 billion with support from the Indian government. Indian Railway Construction Company built the line in three phases—Jayanagar to Kurtha, Kurtha to Bhangaha and Bhangaha to Bardibas.

The construction of the Bhangaha-Bardibas section, however, remains stalled for months due to disputes over compensation for the land acquired for the railroad. “The land acquisition dispute has been resolved now. Work will begin soon along the Bijalpura-Bardibas section as well. We are planning to extend rail service to Bardibas within two years,” said Jha.

The Jayanagar-Janakpur-Bijalpura railroad was built about eight decades ago, when India was still under British colonial rule, to transport timber from the forests of Mahottari to India. The railway line spanned 52 km from Bijulpura in Mahottari of Nepal, to Jayanagar in Bihar, India, at that time.