BADARPUR, April 9 – “The BG construction work of Silchar-Badarpur-Lumding hill section of the Northeast Frontier Railway will be completed within the year 2007, positively. Although this hill section is beset with insurgency problems, the BG construction work of the Lumding-Badarpur hill section is going on in full swing at present. There is no problem of money for this work. This year in the Budget, Rs 75 crore has been sanctioned for the BG implementation,” stated NF Railway general manager (GM) Vipen Nanda here while he was talking with the newspersons at Badarpur Railway Station after reaching here from Maligaon, recently by special train.
GM Nanda also informed newspersons that for the 198-km gauge changing work the fund would be Rs 1500 crore. But the cost may go up to Rs 200 crore, Sri Nanda expected. He also said that, uptil now 20 per cent of its work has been fully completed, and the rest will be completed within 2007. Railway Protection Forces personnel of the special branch have been posted for 24-hour vigil. These steps have been taken to ensure that the BG work is not stalled.
Referring to rail-accidents in the Lumding-Badarpur hill section, the GM also informed that steps have been initiated to change the railway tracks as well as introduce new coaches, high quality paka-sleepers and set up new railway lines in the metre gauge.
During his stay here, a delegates team of Bharatiya Janata Party and Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, led by Dipak Dev and Bimalakanta Chakraborty also met with him and submitted a memorandum, mentioning some demands like setting up of a Railway division, introduction of computer reservation, and setting up of employment exchange at Badarpur, a BJP release said.
The Badarpur Rail Division Implementation Demand Committee also submitted a memorandum to the GM, urging him to immediately set up the Railway Division at Badarpur. The Badarpur Railway Mazdoor and Employees Unions also met with him and discussed various problems of the Badarpur Railway Hospital and Railway employees. The two unions also demanded immediate solution to the problems of employees in various railway departments.
The GM was accompanied by DRM-Lumding, Aswini Kumar Malhotra, CPRO and high officials of the Railways.