SHILLONG: Concerned over the plight of commuters who are forced to travel through the landslide prone areas of Sonapur in Jaintia Hills, two advocates from the Gauhati High Court have approached Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his intervention to address the plight of the commuters and to complete the repair work of road at Sonapur on NH-44 (NH-6 on the Assam side) in order to restore smooth connectivity to and from Barak Valley of Assam, Tripura and Mizoram via Meghalaya.
In the memorandum, the two advocates – Bishwajyoti Purkayastha and Fazley Elahi Choudhury – said that NH-6 was the only lifeline of the people of entire Barak Valley, Mizoram, Tripura and parts of Manipur and recently due to heavy rainfall the entire highway has been blocked due to landslides.
The advocates said that due to the blockade, movement of goods carrying vehicles has been stopped resulting in hike in prices of essential commodities like onion, potato, chilli etc.
The advocates further mentioned that the Northeastern Frontier Railway has decided to initiate the conversion of the existing MG line into the BG line w.e.f. January 1, 2015, and therefore they have declared to stop the railway service for about six months, which will cause additional burden on the people unless the highway was repaired and made worthy for vehicular movement at the earliest.
Copies of the memoranda have also been submitted to the Assam and Meghalaya Chief Ministers.
