Construction of Railway Heritage Museum starts

Construction of a new building to room the Railway Heritage Museum is going on in Cooch Behar. The new building is coming up adjacent to Cooch Behar Railway Station. It is expected that construction of the new building may be completed by the end of the year.

According to practiced norms the railway museums are erected following the model of a local heritage building. In Cooch Behar the proposed museum building is being constructed following the structure of the historic Madan Mohan temple.

Additional divisional railway manager (ADRM) of North East Frontier Railway's Alipurduar division, Mr Indrajit Singh said the proposed building is being constructed at about 1000 square-feet area adjacent to Cooch Behar Railway Station. He expects the work to be completed by September of this year if no major problem comes up. A fund to the tune of Rs 7.62 crore has been allocated for the purpose, he said.

NF Railway sources said, historic articles and documents of the then Cooch Behar State Railway, Eastern Bengal Railway, Bengal Dooars Railway, old instruments, ticket box, drawings, furniture, trolleys, water columns and many other materials are to be displayed in the gallery of the museum. A library room will also be there, where books on railways and its history and also of cultural heritage of North-eastern India would be kept for curious readers and researchers. In the auditorium there will be facility for screening of documentary films and staging of cultural programmes.

Laying of railway tracks began in Cooch Behar in 1883 in a bid to connect the then princely state of Cooch Behar with railways of other parts of Bengal. But, prior to that, a railway station came up at Haldibari, on the western side of the Cooch Behar State in 1876. The new railway museum may throw light to that closed chapter of history again to the present generation believe many. Union railway minister Ms Mamata Banerjee laid the foundation of the proposed Railway Heritage Museum in Cooch Behar on 29 October in 2009. From that day a museum came up in a small room in Cooch Behar Railway Station with a few age-old articles, artefacts and documents. After completion of the new building the museum would be shifted to spacious rooms with many more objects for exhibition.

Secretary of Cooch Behar Heritage Society Mr Arup Jyoti Majumdar believes it will attract tourists and visitors to Cooch Behar from outer places and may act as a booster to develop the tourism industry in this region. Mr Shibendra Nath Roy of Concern for Cooch Behar also expressed his pleasure over the decision of the railway ministry to establish a full-fledged railway heritage museum in the heritage town of Cooch Behar.