Jorhat, Feb. 4: The Northeast Frontier Railway has submitted a Rs 7-lakh project to the forest department to build a steel bridge that would reunite two gibbon families, which were separated during the laying of rail tracks through their habitat.

While the idea was to build two steel bridges designed and camouflaged to look like trees, the assistant conservator of forest (Jorhat division, Assam), Gunin Saikia, said they have finally decided to build one. The project is likely to cost Rs 7 lakh of which the forest department will pay 2 per cent. The NFR will float tenders for the project. “The second bridge would probably come up later,” Saikia said.

The move to construct bridges over railway tracks in Gibbon Wildlife Sanctuary near Mariani in Jorhat along the Assam-Nagaland border was taken by Union minister and parliamentarian from Jorhat, Bijoy Krishna Handique about few years back following reports that two gibbon families were facing extinction. The tracks were laid in the thirties.

Gibbons are arboreal (tree dwellers) by nature and do not set foot on the ground. They are an endangered species and listed in Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.

Handique had donated Rs 2 lakh from his MP area development fund for the development of the sanctuary, which has about seven primate species apart from a variety of other animals.