RANCHI/HAZARIBAG: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the new railway track between Koderma-Hazaribag and flag off Demu services on the same route on Friday. Officials at North Chotanagpur railway division headquarters said on Thursday the district would be connected by a 79.7-km-railway track 162 years after the first railway track was laid in India between Bombay and Thane in April 1853.

"In 1998, the Union government allocated funds for a railway line in Hazaribag in the rail budget with then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee laying the foundation stone for a189 km Koderma-Hazaribag-Barkakana-Ranchi rail track," said former Union minister Yashwant Sinha, who was finance minister at that time.

Sinha said that the state government signed MoU with the railways in 2002, but only the first phase between Koderma and Hazaribag could be completed in the past 12 years, owing to several reasons including change of government at the Centre.

Hailing the introduction of railways in Hazaribag, president of North Chhotanagpur chamber of commerce and industries, Ranjan Kumar Jain said that apart from improving connectivity, the project would give an impetus to industrial and economic development in the region.

"Many companies like Videocon backed out from Hazaribag due to non-availability of railway connectivity in the past," he said. In the past few days, the newly constructed Hazaribag station had become a hotspot for tourists. Locals have been sceptical about whether they will get to see the station amidst the crowd on the day Modi arrives.