Guwahati High Court asks clearificatiion to Ministry of Railways, Railway Board and the Northeast Frontier Railway regarding any negligence or loopwholes in the construction of Silchar lumding broad gauge in Assam?
After this occured moment major portion of Northeast people starts to believe there is involvement of huge monitory scam regarding this, though the matter is under judicial proceeding now.
After a PIL filed by the All Barak Youth Students Association, Gauhati High Court on 11th of June issues notice against Indian Railway authorities for allegedly not mantaining safety guidelines for constructing Lumding to Silchar broad-gauge in Assam. HC gave four weeks time to to reply to the notice for the Ministry of Railways, Railway Board and the Northeast Frontier Railway.
According to the petition work on the conversion of metre-gauge to broad-gauge line connecting Barak Valley, Tripura, Manipur, and Mizoram was taken for granted without keeping safty measures in mind.
The Commissioner of Railway Safety had suggested the Indian Railways administration to engage experts in the field of geo-technology to review the status critically and suggest suitable preventive measures, it said. The PIL alleged that the authorities of Indian Railways, however, went ahead without rectifying serious defects in spite of the negative views in the expert report.
The idea of conversion of Lumding to Silchar metre-gauge to broad-gauge in Assam was sanctioned in 1996-97, and it was declared a national project in the year 2004. From 21 November 2015, passenger trains were started on the broad-gauge track.
Recently, massive landslides, mudslides and heavy rain wreaked havoc in Dima Hasao, which is situated between Lumding and Silchar, and all its communication channels were affected.
The only railway link connecting the district of Dima Hasao and Barak Valley, Manipur, Mizoram, and Tripura with the rest of India was washed away as well. The people of Dima Hasao and south Assam are paying the price for non-compliance with the CRS report, the PIL further said.
As per the PIL, during the course of the conversion work, the principal director of audit in his Theme Based Audit Report, had warned the authorities of Indian Railways that construction work commenced without adequate geo-technical investigation.
The petition, citing the report said the project shall be derailed because of faulty planning as well as failure to visualize the soil strata behaviour on the part of the national transporter.Besides, the PIL also said that the CRS in its report had indicated a series of major loopholes.