India to ratify Trans-Asian Railways agreement at UN in July

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

New Delhi, Mar 21 (UNI) Less than a fortnight after the Cabinet approved the signing of the Inter-Governmental Agreement on Trans-Asian Railways (TAR), India today said it would ratify the agreement at the UN headquarters in New York in July this year.

Railway Board Chairman J P Batra said the ratification of TAR, aimed at speeding up the the networking of railways across Asia and Europe for a competitive and efficient containerised freight traffic, would give a concrete shape to the project that had been hanging fire since long.

Mr Batra, who was briefing reporters on the proceedings of the inaugural meeting of the Asian Regional Assembly (ARA) of the Paris-based UIC ( International Union of Railways) here, said it had already been signed by around 20 countries, including Armenia, Azerbajjan, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Laos, Mongolia, Nepal, Korea, Russian Federation, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand and Turkey.

It was opened for signature on November 10 and 11 last year during the ministerial conference on transport of the UN-ESCAP at Busan in Korea, and is open for signature till December 31, 2008.

He said it would be a multi-modal network involving rail and sea routes and would provide easy access to the booming market in northern Europe and northern parts of America.

Mr Batra, first non-European Chairman of the 224-member re-organised UIC, said there were some ''missing links'' among various countries of the region, especially between India and Myanmar and between India and China, and governments of these countries would have to speed up efforts to find solutions to these problems.

''At today's ARA meeting, there was a consensus among the regional railways that the project should get off the ground at the earliest, considering its immense benefits to trade and commerce and tourism as well as fostering people-to-people contacts,'' he pointed out.

Mr Batra pointed out that there was a missing link of 350 km between India and Myanamar and another 660 km between China and Myanmar. ''If these links are fully bridged, the India-China rail corridor would become a reality,'' he said, adding that India had been holding talks with Myanmar to find ways and means for funding this project.

Of the 350 km, India has already constructed 100 km on its territory.

Another important project for India is North-South corridor, a multi-modal transport system linking it with Russia and Eastern Europe via Iran. This will be known as South East Asian Railway Network.

The third such project, to be undertaken by UIC, is North-East-West Corridor between China and North-East America through Russia and Northern Europe.

''UIC will start its trial run in October this year, and it promises to reduce the transportation time by half,'' he said.

UNI

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