AGARTALA, June 11 – The Broad Gauge (BG) conversion work from Lumding to Badarpur, which is considered a very challenging task, would be completed on schedule, said BN Rajsekhar, Additional Manager of Indian Railways Board.
Rajsekhar, who arrived here along with top officials of Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) to see the alignment of the Indo-Bangla rail link on Thursday, told reporters that the BG conversion work on the Lumding-Badarpur section would get completed by December 2013.
“The difficult terrain, weak bridges and bottlenecks in transportation make the task most challenging”, he said. However, Rajsekhar claimed there is no major law and order problem in the NC Hills.
However, Chief Engineer (Construction) NFR Mohanlal said the law and order situation has emerged a major problem in executing projects. “But we are hopeful of completing the BG conversion work by December 2013”, he said.
On the delay in executing the project, Mohanlal said that in the initial stage fund flow was very slow but now there is no dearth of money after it got national project status.
Asserting that the alignment of the 15 km Agartala- Gangasagar (Indo-Bangla) rail link was okay, Rajsekhar said that he would submit a report before the competent authority.
The Centre has already approved Rs 251 crore for the project though the estimated cost stands at Rs 267 crore. According to officials here, the project would take two and half years to complete after release of fund.
