AGARTALA: To implement the Vision 2020, the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) has set a target of brining all the state capitals of north-eastern regions into the Indian Railways map by 2017 next.
Revealing this to media here on Saturday, General Manager of NFR, Construction Ms Vijaya Kanta termed the task proving rail connectivity to all NE state capitals a major challenge given the geographical condition.
“Lot of tunnels need to be constructed to fulfill the target as the region is full of hilly areas,” the GM who attended a review meeting with Chief Minister Manik Sarkar and Chief Secretary SK Panda at Civil Secretariat said.
As per the plan, the Broad Gauge (BG) conversion work from Lumding to Agartala is scheduled for completion by 2013 December.
Asserting that BG conversion work was in full swing between Lumding and Badarpur, the GM said, “Insurgency has come down in the Norht Cachar Hills region but frequent
bandhs often foil the momentum of the construction work”.
She said the NFR had already sought help from a Tamil construction agency to expedite the ongoing construction of the biggest tunnel (3.5 km) at NC Hills region.
On the review meeting, the GM said progress of the existing rail projects in Tripura came up for discussion. While the Agartala-Udaipur rail link is scheduled to be completed by 2012, another project- Agartala-Sabaroom will be executed by 2014 next, she told.
The admitted there is a problem in land acquisition at Bishalgarh subdivision in West Tripura district. “If the land acquisition problem is solved, the NFR will do the job within scheduled time”, she said.
The construction companies could not undertake earth cutting work in five locations of Bishalgarh with local people reluctant to handover the land to the state authority for rail project. Sources claimed, the state government has already taken initiatives to convince the reluctant villagers about the importance of the rail link.
