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Agartala, Oct. 27: Problems with land acquisition caused by political one-upmanship has stalled the extension of railway network from Agartala to Sabroom.
Fifteen families have refused to allow their land, including homesteads, to be acquired by railway authorities for laying tracks over a distance of 6km in Bishalgarh subdivision.
Former chief minister and veteran Congress leader Samir Ranjan Barman is being accused of stalling the land acquisition work through his supporters.
“All other people in Bishalgarh subdivision have accepted compensation but these 15 families, all die-hard supporters of Barman, have refused to allow acquisition. We have been informed that Barman has asked his supporters not to agree to the compensation. In fact he has also helped them file court cases,” said Subrata Chakraborty, secretary of Bishalgarh divisional committee of the CPM.
Barman, however, dismissed the allegations as “baseless” saying, “if the owners of land do not hand over their property to the government what can I do? I have nothing to do with this.” He described the allegations as a “blatant disinformation campaign.”
The general manager of Northeast Frontier Railway’s construction wing, A.K. Verma, who checked the entire locational alignment of railway network between Agartala and Sabroom on Thursday and yesterday, also expressed grave doubts over the completion of the first phase of the extension work from Agartala to Udaipur, headquarter of newly created Gomati district, covering a distance of 44 kms, by March 2013.
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