SHILLONG:
Minister of Railways, Communications and Electronic & Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw, on December 7, informed that the railways has taken up new line projects for capital connectivity of Meghalaya and four other states of the North East.
Replying to a question raised during the Winter Session, Vaishnaw told the Lok Sabha that for capital connectivity of remaining five North East states- Meghalaya (Shillong), Manipur (Imphal), Nagaland (Kohima), Mizoram (Aizawl) and Sikkim (Gangtok), railways has taken up new line projects.
These are Jiribam – Imphal (111 km) , Bhairabi – Sairang (51 km) , Dimapur (Dhansiri) – Zubza (Kohima) (82 km), Sivok – Rangpo (44 km), Tetelia – Byrnihat (22 km) and Byrnihat – Shillong (108 km).
The railway minister informed that completion of railway project/s depends on various factors like quick land acquisition by state government, forest clearance by officials of forest department, shifting of infringing utilities, statutory clearances from various authorities, geological and topographical conditions of area, law and order situation in the area of project/s site, number of working months in a year for particular project site due to climatic conditions etc. and all these factors affect the completion time of the project/s.
“With above constraints, every effort is being made to execute the project/s expeditiously,” Vaishnaw said.