Siliguri, April 2. - Unesco in collaboration with Indian
Railways, has drawn up a `comprehensive draft plan` to restore
the popularity of the 125-year-old Darjeeling Himalayan Railways (DHR)
and in the process get the tourists back to the mountains.
The aim is to tap the tourism potential
of the heritage train that started chugging along the 80-km long
track in 1880 as the only carrier of the hill people.
Nothing much has changed about its character, except that it is
no longer the only conveyance that crawls up the hilly tracts.
Born three years after independence, the colonial-era-train is
now on the Unesco`s heritage list. It has drawn tourists from far
and wide, only in the process it has resulted in mounting losses.
Sources at the DHR said the toy train incurs an annual loss of around
Rs. 9 crore.
The thrust of the plan is self-sustainable development initiatives,
which includes boosting cultural and ecological tourism along the
stretch the train covers. The Unesco plan has identified certain
locations along the track where the `development drives`
would be put to test. These are Sukna, Rongtong, Tindharia Workshop,
Gayabari, Kurseong, Tung, Sonada Jorebungalow, Ghum and Darjeeling.
For starters, information and communication technology centres
(ICTs) have been set up at Sukna and Kurseong, two points between
which the train trundles.
The ICTs, providing computer-assisted information and history about
the DHR and its surrounding areas, is aimed at making the tourists
aware of the history part. Apart from these ICTs, the Unesco also
wants to create "information cells" at important stations.
Rajesh Agarwal, the executive director of Unesco and a DHR export,
told: `The Unesco will be responsible for reviving the heritage
rail tourism project with assistance from the ministry of railways
and the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council. Different teams would be
formed to oversee the development initiatives and their implementation`.
Railway officials said the tourism initiatives were influenced
by `foreign models of the toy train` like the Ffestiniog
Railway in Wales, the Puffing Billy in Australia, Semmering Railway
in Austria and the Steam Heritage Mountain Railways in Germany.
Work in underway to remove encroachments along the train's track
and improve the quality of bridges along the railway track. The
toy train is currently off the tracks for a few days as part of
a routine maintenance work. |
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