Nepal does capacity building for upcoming railway projects

Nepal's Railway Department is preparing to build up its capacity for upcoming railway projects.

India and China had earlier vowed to help Nepal develop a better railway infrastructure.

The department is currently working on identifying issues that are needed to be addressed. It aims at building strong rail connectivity within and beyond the country.

"We are assessing the needs and preparing a plan accordingly," Kathmandu Post quoted Prakash Upadhyaya, the department's senior divisional engineer, as saying.

The department will soon share its plan with the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport as it is solely responsible for development of major infrastructure projects, he added.

The infrastructure and budgetary resources assigned by the government, however, seem insufficient to turn this dream into reality.

The department does not even have a single rail engineer and the number of employees is far from satisfactory. Only 40 officers are presently working for the agency.

"We may lack the resources, but we do have Nepali people who have been trained in railway engineering in countries like China and South Korea. We should be working towards attracting such individuals to work for us," Kathmandu Post quoted Upadhyaya as saying.

For this purpose, Nepal has recently sent two of its engineers to China to pursue Master's degree in railway engineering.