AGARTALA, June 19 - Having failed to restore the BG track, Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) has decided to build a diversion bypassing the landslip affected Microndisa in NC Hills of Assam, official sources said.
BG train service between Lumding-Silchar section has been stalled for over a month due to massive landslips at Microndisa in NC hills.
Grappling with the restoration work, the NFR authority had engaged an Austrian Geologist to find the reason behind the swelling of soil at Microndisa.
After conducting study, the Austrian Geologist has opined that the soil has started swelling once stones come in contact with it and the remedy is to by-pass the path.
Keeping in mind the importance of Lumding-Silchar section, General Manager (GM), NFR HK Jaggi has met Union Minister for Railways Suresh Prabhu and briefed him about the ground reality.
In course of the meeting, Jaggi told the Railways Minister the only way to restore train service is to build a diversion line to avoid trouble-some Microndisa.
And, Prabhu has readily accepted the plan and asked the NFR authority to go ahead with the plan. After getting green signal from Delhi, the NFR has already carried out survey in half-km patch of the affected area for building a diversion.
According to sources, if the weather remains good, it will take a month to lay BG track on the diversion at Microndisa and it may get delayed if showers come.
It means people of entire Barak Valley, Mizoram, Manipur and Tripura will have to wait for a month to get BG train service.
Obviously, the flagging off programme to mark commencement of BG train service upto Agartala has been deferred till the restoration works are done at Microndisa.
According to sources, the regular BG train service upto Agartala would start by August or September.
The then Prime Minister HD Davegowda laid the foundation stone for the Silchar-Lumding railway project way back in 1996. The estimated cost of the project, which was Rs 626 crore initially has increased to Rs 5,530 crore due to delay in executing the rail project.
