DUSHANBE, August 6, 2014, Asia-Plus — Construction of tunnels and bridges along the Vahdat-Yovon railway will start in early September this year, Abdulfayz Kholiqov, the head of the Dushanbe-Qurghon Teppa Construction Directorate, told journalists in Dushanbe on August 5.
“Three tunnels with total length of more than 3.7 kilometers and five bridges with total length of 712 meters will be built along the Vahdat-Yovon railway,” Kholiqov said.
According to him, the Export-Import bank of China (China Exim Bank) has provided a $60 million loan carrying out these works and China Railway Construction 19TH Division will be engaged in constructing these facilities.
Meanwhile, construction of a rail link connecting Dushanbe, Vahdat and Yovon is under way and it is expected to be finished September 2016.
The Vahdat-Yovon railway that is 46.3 kilometers in length is being built in two stages. The first phase of the project includes construction of 13 kilometers of railway from the railway station Ilyak in the Vahdat district to the railway station Gambuloq in the Roudaki district. The second phase includes construction of a 33.3-kilometer railway from the Gambuloq station to the railway station Yovon-2 that will connect the railways Dushanbe-Vahdat and Yovon-Qurghon Teppa.
China Exim Bank has reportedly provided A $72 million loan for implementation of this project.
We will recall that the present railway link joining the Tajik capital and Qurghon Teppa, which is 429 kilometers in length, runs across the territory of Uzbekistan and the Uzbek authorities have suspended rail traffic to the Tajik southern Khatlon province.
The Vahdat-Yovon railway will link the country”s central part with the southern province of Khatlon and will make it possible to shorten the distance by 152 kilometers.
