Slow pace of Silchar-Lumding broadgauge project

Karimganj (Assam): The Silchar-Lumding Broad Gauge Rupayan Sangram Committee (SLBGRC) has charged the union government with being lackdaisical in its approach to complete the much-anticipated railway project which is expected to serve as a major lifeline to the Barak Valley. “The central government and the Ministry of Development of Noeth East Region (DoNER) have betrayed the people of Barak Valley as they claimed that the broad gauge would be completed by 2013,” SLBGRC Executive Member Ajoy Roy said. A nine member team of the SLBGRC visited the project site at Dima Hasao Autonomous District earlier this week. Roy alleged that an influential lobby was trying to scuttle the project. According to a report prepared by the SLBGRC after the field trip, the girders had still not been installed in the proposed railway overbridge at Badarpur. The report also has claimed that no work was currently being undertaken at the Banderkhal area, where a bridge is scheduled to be built. It also pointed out that controversy with regard to the clearance by the forest department in the Harengazao and Banderkhal regions had yet not been resolved. (PTI)