Silchar, Jan. 11: The Northeast Frontier Railway has no immediate plans to resume passenger train services at night along the 185-km insurgency-prone Badarpur-Lumding hill section, as the Assam government was yet to provide adequate security to the railway crewmen.

The divisional manager of NF Railway’s Lumding sector, S.S. Narayan, said security issues along the Badarpur-Lumding section have already been discussed between Assam chief secretary P.C. Sharma and NF Railway general manager Ashutosh Swami at the railway headquarters in Maligaon on December 31.

They, however, failed reach an agreement on the bid to provide “foolproof security” on this troubled route, he said.

The state authorities said no large-scale deployment of troops in this hill section was possible, as the government was facing a shortage of security forces in Guwa-hati and other parts of the state.

At present, only one goods train can cross this section at night.

This is in addition to the four to five goods trains that already ply carrying vital supplies to south Assam, Tripura and Mizoram.

Narayan said NF railway’s previous plans to introduce passenger trains at night were shelved after the Jewel Gorlosa faction of the DHD blew up a bridge on January 4 between the Ditakcherra and Maigrengdisha stations along this track.

The passengers now find it most difficult to commute between Silchar and Lumding, as there is a paucity of passenger trains in this vital route.

Both the key passenger trains from here — Cachar Express and the Barak valley trains — used to ply at night. Only one pair of special passenger train is now being run in the day between Badarpur and Lumding.

The NF Railway, in the meantime, has also suspended the movement of petroleum products because of the “uneasy security scenario” on this route. This has forced Indian Oil Corporation and Oil India Limited to use special tankers to transport petroleum products along the national highways to south Assam, Tripura and Mizoram.