Shashwati Chowdhury
Published on: June 9, 2022 at 17:38 IST
The Gauhati High Court on Wednesday demanded an explanation from the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) as to why a 2015 report by the Commissioner of Railway Safety for a landslide-prone arterial broad-gauge track connecting southern Assam, Manipur, Mizoram, and Tripura was not implemented.
Following landslips caused by heavy rain in May, the 170-kilometer track connecting Lumding and Badarpur across Dima Hasao district was destroyed in at least 56 places. Some stranded passengers were rescued with the help of Indian Air Force choppers.
The Court of Acting Chief Justice N. Kotiswar Singh and Justice Soumitra Saikia, hearing a public interest litigation filed by Baharul Islam Barbhuiya of Silchar, asked the Railways why the non-implementation of the safety report was not investigated.
It also wanted to know if the Commissioner of Railway Safety’s seven-year-old suggestions were being implemented in the ongoing 180-crore track restoration work, and if geotechnical experts had been hired to ensure a safer alignment.
Fazluzzaman Majumdar, the petitioner’s counsel stated, “The court gave the Railways four weeks to respond.”
In 1996-97, the metre-gauge to broad-gauge conversion of the Dima Hasao railway line, which dates from 1899, was approved. It was recognized as a national project in 2004 and began passenger train service in November 2015.
During the conversion work, the principal director of audit warned the Railway authorities in his theme-based audit report that the project, which had been started without adequate geotechnical investigation, could be derailed due to faulty planning and failure to visualise the soil strata behaviour.
Later, a report by the Commissioner of Railway Safety highlighted severe flaws that needed to be addressed before passenger trains could be operated on the track. The provision of Section 22(1) of the Railway Act of 1989 requiring the newly constructed broad-gauge track to be opened for passenger service had not been substantially followed, according to the report.
The NFR began rehabilitation work with the 180 crore sanctioned by the Centre without “depth mapping of both topographical and geological status of slide-prone areas,” according to the petition. It sought a high-level inquiry into why the Commissioner of Railway Safety’s safety measures were ignored and no preventive action was taken before the track was reopened to passenger trains.
