New Delhi: In its push for the ‘Look East’ policy, the Narendra Modi government has focused on connecting all state capitals in the Northeast with broad gauge and strengthening rail network in border areas of the region.
The momentum in this rail infrastructure development picked up pace in 2014, after the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government first came to power. However, concerns persist over land acquisition issues.
In a written statement to Parliament last month, the Ministry of Railways said average annual expenditure on new lines, gauge conversion and doubling infrastructure in the region saw a 126 per cent jump between 2009-2014 and 2014-2019 — from Rs 11,527 crore to Rs 26,022 crore, on a per year basis.
The ministry said the average railways budget allocation for the Northeast also increased by 161 per cent during this period — from Rs 2,122 crore to Rs 5,531 crore, on a per year basis.
Official figures for the rail infrastructure in the region reveal that the expenditure has borne fruit.
Between 2014 and 2018, over 900 km of meter gauge track was converted to broad gauge, say official figures. In this period, the average annual commissioning of broad gauge line in the Northeast was 3.2 times compared to that four years ago, according to the railways vision document for 2020.
“Of the eight Northeast state capitals, Agartala, Guwahati and Itanagar have already been connected with broad gauge rail network since 2014. The deadline for connecting all the state capitals with broad gauge rail network is 2020,” said a railway ministry official.
A passenger broad gauge train from Itanagar to New Delhi started in February 2015. The first broad gauge long-distance passenger train connecting Agartala to New Delhi became operational in July 2016.
Work on converting the meter gauge track to broad gauge, however, had started during the UPA era. At present, except for Sikkim, the Northeast does not have any meter gauge operation.
Last year, work was also completed on the long-delayed 4.9-km Bogibeel rail and road bridge on Brahmaputra river, reducing rail travel distance from Dibrugarh (Assam) to Naharlagun (Itanagar) by 750 km.
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Land acquisition issues
While the projects have picked up pace in the recent past, concerns have been raised over massive delay in land acquisition in some states, including Mizoram, Nagaland and Meghalaya.
The Bogibeel project in Assam, for instance, was started in 2002 and took 16 years to complete.
Similarly, the Rs 5,021-crore broad gauge line connecting Bairabi to Sairang in Mizoram was sanctioned in 2008-09, but land was made available only in 2014-15.
Officials in the railways ministry told ThePrint that many of the new rail line projects have got delayed because of land acquisition and law and order issues, but work is happening faster now.
“Earlier, things moved at a snail’s pace. Land acquisition issues are still there but because of the high priority accorded to these projects, bottlenecks are sorted out much faster,” said a second ministry official.
The railways ministry statement in Parliament said 87 per cent tunnelling has been completed in the Mizoram project. Until March 2019, Rs 2,671 crore were spent on the 51.38-km long rail link.
Cost escalation
However, another official in the ministry admitted that delays in land acquisition have resulted in massive cost escalations.
For instance, the 110-km long broad gauge link connecting Jiribam to Imphal in Manipur, was sanctioned in 2003-2004, but is yet to be completed. The overall project cost has gone up a staggering 1900 per cent — from Rs 727 crore to Rs 13,809 crore. Until March 2019, the railways had spent Rs 8,487 crore on it.
In Nagaland, an 82.5-km rail link connectivity from Dimapur to Kohima was sanctioned in 2006-07 at a cost of Rs 2,315 crore.
“The latest anticipated cost of the project is Rs 3000 crore and the work speeded up from September 2018 and the expenditure of Rs 729 crore has been incurred on the project upto March 2019,” the railway ministry said in its statement in Parliament.
Work on the project is ongoing now to acquire 8.85 hectares, where there are ownership disputes. The project will be completed in three years only after the entire stretch of land is handed over to railways.
Such delays have slowed down projects in Meghalaya and Sikkim too.
Work on two rail link projects in Meghalaya, which were sanctioned in 2006-07 and 2010-11 respectively, is moving slowly because of land acquisition disputes.
A 44-km rail link project in Sikkim, sanctioned in 2008-09, has also got affected due to a massive delay on the part of West Bengal government to hand over forest land. The rail line will pass through Bengal and a sizeable chunk of land that falls in the state has to be handed over to railways. The project will take three years to complete once railways gets the entire land.
“We are trying to expedite the process,” said an official quoted above.
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