(TibetanReview.net, Mar25’26) – Ahead of a new government taking office in Kathmandu following the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), with its 35-year-old Prime Ministerial leader Balendra Shah’s, massive recent electoral victory, India has come out with a Detailed Project Report (DPR) for a new rail link between the two countries. Meanwhile, a feasibility study for a China-Nepal railway through Tibet is set to be completed in June. Both the railway lines from Tibet and India are to reach Kathmandu, effectively linking Tibet and India by railway network through Nepal’s capital.
India’s Ministry of Railways has completed the Final Location Survey (FLS) and prepared the Detailed Project Report (DPR) of Raxaul-Kathmandu new line project. The 136-km-long new rail line project will further improve the connectivity between the two nations and promote economic growth and development, reported indianexpress.com Mar 23.
The project followed a joint statement issued by the governments of India and Nepal on April 7, 2018 for the construction of a new electrified railway line to expand rail connectivity between the two countries. This project is to be funded by the government of India and will link the border city of Raxaul in India with Kathmandu.
The report noted that in a written statement in Rajya Sabha (the upper house of Indian parliament) on Mar 20, 2026, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said: “Pashupatinath Dham is located outside India in Kathmandu, Nepal. Nearest Railway station is Raxaul, which is well connected with railway network. Final Location Survey of Raxaul (India)-Kathmandu (Pashupatinath) new line (136 Km) has been completed and Detailed Project Report (DPR) prepared.”
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Meanwhile, regarding the Kerung-Kathmandu Railway, China completed the field study in April “and are now drafting the feasibility study,” the kathmandupost.com Feb 26 quoted Bodh Bhandari, information officer at Nepal’s Department of Railway, as saying.
The Kerung-Kathmandu railway will be part of the 550-km railroad connecting the Tibetan city of Shigatse with Kerung near the Nepal-Tibet border, the report said.
Bhandari has expressed confidence that the feasibility study would be structured to allow the both technically and financially highly challenging project to proceed.
While the total investment needed for the project will be known once the feasibility study is completed, the pre-feasibility study put the cost of the 72.25 km Nepali section at $2.75 billion. China wants to charge the Belt-and road Initiative (BRI) interest rate on a loan for this project while Nepal, fearing being debt-trapped, is insisting on a much lower grant-in-aid interest rate.
The proposed Tibet-Nepal railway project is not only geographically highly challenging but also very costly for both China and Nepal.
According to the pre-feasibility study report, around 98.5% of the railway would either be bridges or tunnels, and the construction cost would be Nepali Rs3.55 billion per kilometre. It envisages that engineers would build ramps along the northern and southern slopes leading to Lake Paiku, near Kerung, to connect the tracks to the Kathmandu section. The goal of the ramps would be to overcome the significant elevation difference between the southern and northern toes of the Himalayas, the report said.