The ambitious project to include the Himalayan state of Sikkim in the Indian railway map will be completed by December 2023, Anshul Gupta, the general manager of Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR), said on Friday.

Gupta, who visited Sevoke railway station, 20km from here, and is also likely to visit Sikkim, said landslides in the hills, especially during monsoon months, delayed the project to connect Sevoke with Rangpo town on the Bengal-Sikkim border. Land acquisition snags were another reason, he added.

“But work is in progress at full swing and we hope to finish it in a couple of years’ time,” Gupta said.

Sources in NFR said two major mishaps this monsoon halted work on the project for some time. On June 17, a boulder killed two workers. On July 30, a swollen rivulet flooded one of the tunnels and killed two more workers.