Lumding to Silchar : The story of an endless tunnel.

When, the then Prime Minister HD Devegowda landed in Silchar to lay the foundation stone of the broad gauge conversion work of the Lumding – Silchar corridor in 1996, he greeted the people of Silchar with a few words in Assamese, completely ignorant of the fact that, the couple of thousands strong crowd which had gathered to listen to him did not speak the language at all. He was also shamelessly insensitive to the fact, that, the region he was visiting had a bloody yet illustrious history of struggle to safeguard their mother tongue Bengali. That insensitivity was just a symbolic representation of the insensitivity the gauge conversion project itself was to face in the years to come. Since then, 15 more summers have passed and three more politicians have warmed the Prime Minister’s chair, but the insensitivity still persists. The insensitivity starts from the Prime Minister’s desk and flows down the chain to reach the Railway Minister and then catches up with the Chief Minister of Assam to finally reach his cronies in Barak Valley who falsely claim to represent the region in the state’s assembly.

Otherwise, how would one explain the fact that, even after 15 years of the sanctioning of the project, only about half the work has been completed? How would one explain the fact that, there are aspersions even today that the project will take another seven to eight years to complete, despite getting the status of a national project?

The NF Railway employees Union has recently expressed concern that the project will be completed only by 2018. A progress report issued by NF Railway on the project for the month of November, 2010, available with Concern For Silchar says that about 51 percent of tunnelling work has been completed and about 55 percent of the construction of super structures of major bridges has been completed. The report also explains at length that the poor road condition in the region is a major deterrent towards the rapid completion of the project. The report states that: “Though the project of 4 laning of Lumding-Silchar (National Highway has been sanctioned, condition of the road in NC Hills area has become horrible. It is worthwhile to mention that most of the structural steel materials and reinforcement, cement, sand, aggregate etc. has to be brought from far flung areas. With the present condition of the roads, which are not at all motorable, it will not be possible to move the heavy materials specially Bridge girder components etc. Immediate restoration and its continued sustenance of the road condition including the wooden bridges need to be ensured for smooth movement of men and materials”. The progress report also blames the poor law and order situation of NC Hills (now Dima Hasao district) and continuous rainfall as the other problems plaguing the construction work.

The obvious question that arises now is why the repair work and construction of the road network along this railway alignment has not been expedited over the years? The PWD, Assam and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) are in charge of the four laning of the National Highway 54 Extension that passes through the Dima Hasao district. Despite so much public outcry, why these agencies are not carrying out the repair work of the road rapidly?

The Assam government claims that it has brought peace in Dima Hasao by signing cease fire deals with the Dima Halam Daoga (Jewel Gorlosa faction). However, the engineers of the construction companies that are working in the district say that there is not much change on the ground. Tribal insurgents and petty miscreants harass these engineers regularly and there is no action taken by the state’s Police machinery. The delay of the project is not only creating a major communication bottleneck for the people of south Assam, Tripura, Manipur and Mizoram, it is also denting the national exchequer in a major way. While the original completion cost of this 201 kilometre stretch was Rs. 1,689.12 crores, now it has catapulted to Rs. 3,909.49 crores. If the Railway fails yet again to meet the next deadline of December, 2013, the cost will escalate further.

A German engineer who worked in the Konkan Railway project in western India had said that, India seems like the richest nation in the world because of the manner in which its public sector projects are delayed and costs are allowed to escalate. Even the developed countries would not be able to afford such luxuries.

Ironically, all the reasons that the Railway authorities have listed in this report for the delay existed a hundred years back also when the metre gauge corridor was being laid by the British. Yet, they managed to complete the entire survey work, followed by construction in little over 20 years. If anything, the conditions were far more hostile. There were no roads at all, the native tribals were virtually untouched by modern civilisation, most of the construction material had to shipped to the Chittagong port from the United Kingdom and the dangerous anopheles mosquitoes crowding the jungles there were capable of whipping of entire gangs of workers . However, those executing this project then were not corrupt like the present lot and were passionate about their work and that made the difference.

A book titled ‘The Final Frontier’ published by the NF Railway chronicles the entire process that led to the commissioning of the Lumding – Badarpur hill section. It says that when the survey work for the corridor was being carried out between 1882 and 1887, there was huge resistance from the indigenous Dimasas and other tribes who opposed the intrusion of the whites into their territories. On October 25, 1887 the Governor General in Council finally decided to construct the corridor after much debate and discussion. Their vision was to provide railway connectivity to the Chittagong port via the hill section and provide a viable alternative to the already crowded Calcutta Port. Moreover, they viewed this line to be extremely beneficial to the tea gardens and coal mines in the region. Adding to the bottlenecks mentioned above, a massive earthquake measuring 8.7 on the Richter Scale hit Shillong on June 12, 1897. This quake completely destroyed parts of the under construction Guwahati – Lumding section and also dealt a body blow to the progress in the hill section. But despite these problems, the Damcherra – Lumding section was opened for traffic on December 1, 1903 and the entire corridor opened a year later.

Contrast this to the 21st century technology that independent India is apparently using to only convert the metre gauge section into broad gauge. We should hang our heads in shame for such unacceptable delays but the shameless scoundrels ruling us don’t have any such pangs of conscience. Forget about the broad gauge conversion, the Railways have not even been able to maintain the metre gauge section properly. It now functions for only about three to four months a year and remains cancelled for the rest for different reasons ranging from landslides to law and order incidents. Even when the trains run, the services are abysmal. There are no lights in the coaches, the toilets are without water and time schedules are never followed. A member of the Railway Board, the elite body of Indian Railway’s engineers, recently said at a function that the Indian Railways does not have the expertise to run metre gauge trains. When a senior Railway functionary sitting in Delhi makes such candid confessions, obviously there is not much hope for the metre gauge section which runs in a far flung God forbidden corner of the North East.