BISWANATH CHARIALI, July 15 � Railway service on the Rangiya-Murkongselek route under the North East Frontier Railway has been disrupted since the last two years in the name of gauge conversion.
As a result, thousands of commuters of the area covering Sonitpur, Lakhimpur, Dhemaji, Darrang and Udalguri districts have been forced to face a difficult situation. It may be mentioned here that the said railway line running along the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border plays a pivotal role in the lives of the common men of those interior places in terms of transportation and communication.
Unfortunately, the slow pace of construction work of the project that was declared as a national project in 2006 and sanctioned in the financial year of 2003-04 has drawn public ire. The NF Railway had assured that the project would be completed by December 2012, but it did not come into reality. Though the conversion work from metre gauge to broad gauge has been completed to some extent, yet the platforms, stations and overbridges are yet to be completed.
On the other hand, serious allegations have been raised against the contractors who are engaged in the construction at different levels. Poor construction work has been noticed at various places, particularly at the station buildings. A good number of labourers were seriously injured at stations like Halem, Borgang, Gohpur etc., due to low quality of work.
Local people and organisations have been complaining to the authorities now and then, but mysteriously everything has fallen into deaf ears. A section of socially-conscious people have also been threatened by some contractors at some places for lodging complaints against them. The laying of iron bars and telecommunication lines are also allegedly not up to the mark and official guidelines have often been violated in setting these up.
The NF Railway had halted plying of trains along this route on September 1, 2011 and declared it as a �mega block�. The Union Government had announced a daily train in between Kamakhya (Guwahati) and Tezpur in the Railway Budget of 2012-13, but the train is yet to be launched.
Around 75 per cent people of Sonitpur, Lakhimpur and Dhemaji districts who are economically backward and flood affected, depend upon this railway service. They have therefore urged the government to speed up work of the said project.
