As tracks pierce isolated red region, Chhattisgarh’s Abujhmad finds a route to progress

At around 6.30 in the morning of a late October day, a train with around 30 passengers leaves the station at Rowghat, in Chhattisgarh’s Kanker district. It will pick up more at Tadoki, Antagarh, Bhanupratappur, and Kewti, before reaching its destination, Dallirajhara, around 100km away.

Chhattisgarh’s new Rowghat-Dallirajhara passenger train connects remote tribal villages, offering affordable access to Raipur.The 12-carriage train soon enters a dense forest; the morning sunlight falls through the trees as the train rolls past hills, streams and small settlements.

The beauty of the landscape is not lost on siblings Anil Potai and Anjani Potai, students of Swami Atmanand College in Raipur and residents of Narayanpur. “There are streams almost every kilometre . It is so beautiful,” Anjani says, recording the landscape on her phone.

Her brother Anil reflects on what the rail link could mean. “Earlier, it used to take the whole day to reach Raipur. Now, I can reach there in a few hours. I am sure that many tribal youths will now study in Raipur,” he says.

At Tadoki, five security personnel board the train, a reminder of the violence that wreaked the region not so long ago; at 7.30am, the train reaches Antagarh, where another 50 people board, most headed for mining town of Dalli Rajhara in Balod district.

One of the security personnel, whose name is being withheld for security reasons, is travelling to his village in Bihar for Diwali. He says the situation has improved considerably and that there is little to worry about once the train crosses Antagarh.

“But here, fear is still there,” he says. Punem, a resident of Antagarh travelling to Dallirajhara for a family function, says the train is cheaper and faster than other options. He plans to return by the same train. From Kewti, about 15km from Antagarh, farmer Kaushal Baghel boards the train for Raipur, saying it has made medical care more accessible.

“The train has made it easier to reach Raipur. Earlier, it was an 8-10 hour bus journey. Now, I can go for my knee consultation at a Raipur hospital,” he says. As more passengers board, people chat in local languages, click pictures and play music on their phones.

For some older passengers, it is their first train journey. Construction for the 95km Dallirajhara–Rowghatt railway line, which has 26 operational stations between Raipur and Rowghat, began in 2015. The 75km stretch up to Tadoki was completed in 2023, with passenger train services commencing the same year.

The remaining was constructed over the next three years. On October 20, 2026, state chief minister Vishnu Deo Sai and Union railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw inaugurated the railway line. It is 6am, inside a forest in Chhattisgarh’s Kanker district, where a 12-coach passenger train is parked at the platform of the newly built Rowghat railway station, once a Maoist bastion, surrounded by serene hills and dense forests.

Its two platforms are protected by security camps providing round-the-clock cover, although no Maoist violence has been reported in the region for the past seven months. The central government has claimed it wiped out Maoism in Chhattisgarh by March 31, 2026.

Since January 2024, security forces have killed 493 Maoists in a series of encounters, while 2,793 Communist Party of India (Maoist) leaders and cadres have surrendered. Rowghat, 140km from Kanker district headquarters, is the first passenger railway station in Abujhmad, once considered an impregnable bastion of Left-wing extremism.

The train passes through places such as Tadoki, once a hotbed of Maoist violence. A few passengers from nearby villages wait for the train to depart as station master MK Sahu sips his morning tea. “On average, about 40 people board the train from Rowghat every day, although the number touched 70 one day after the service started on October 20,” he says.

Narayanpur and Kanker districts, part of the Bastar region, witnessed major Maoist attacks over the past decade, killing 55 security personnel and 87 civilians. In 2018, four District Reserve Guard (DRG) personnel were killed and nine injured in an ambush in Irpanar, Narayanpur.

In 2021, Maoists blew up a bus with an improvised explosive device near Kadenar, killing five DRG personnel and injuring 14. Maoists also killed 29 people they branded police informers, including former Zara village deputy sarpanch Ramji Dodi in March 2023.