Guwahati, July 19: The Assam government today decided to appoint a special nodal officer to monitor and expedite the completion of two much-delayed national projects — the east-west corridor and gauge conversion along the Silchar-Lumding train route.
The decision was taken after 13 of the 15 legislators from the three Barak Valley districts of Cachar, Hailakandi and Karimganj met chief minister Tarun Gogoi at his Assembly office this morning. All legislators were from the ruling Congress.
The lone legislator from the Opposition AIUDF, A. Mazarbhuyan, said he was not informed about the meeting.
Besides pushing for early completion of the two projects, which will help cut down commuting time by almost half between Barak Valley and Guwahati via Lumding in Nagaon district, the legislators also pushed for early release of the remaining Rs 750 crore of the Rs 1,000-crore special development package announced by Dispur for Barak Valley before the 2011 Assembly elections.
Sources said the legislators expressed serious concern over the fact that journey from Brahmaputra valley to Barak Valley had become a nightmare for everyone because of non-implementation of various surface transport schemes both by the state government and the Centre.
It takes more than 12 hours to travel from Guwahati to Silchar via Shillong. Train services between Lumding and Silchar, too, is highly unreliable owing to various factors, including landslides.
Assam sports and excise minister Ajit Singh, who was part of the delegation, told The Telegraph that the meeting with the chief minister was “highly satisfactory” as Gogoi immediately acted on the key demands, even writing to the chief secretary to appoint the nodal officer at the earliest.
“The chief minister also assured us that he would take up the matter of early completion of the Lumding-Silchar gauge conversion and the east-west corridor projects with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh because these two were national projects,” Singh said.
“We requested the chief minister for timely release of funds under the special Rs 1,000-crore package for speedy development of roads and bridges in Barak Valley.”
Sushmita Dev, first-time legislator and daughter of veteran Congress leader Santosh Mohan Dev, told this correspondent that they wanted the nodal officer, who would liaison between the Centre and Dispur, to be based in Haflong in Dima Hasao district.
“We had another meeting this afternoon with planning and development principal secretary Kumar Sanjoy Krishna who said the special package was for filling up critical infrastructure gaps, which will give a fillip to development activities in Barak Valley,” Sushmita said.
Insurgency in Dima Hasao district had inordinately delayed execution of the 184km Lumding-Silchar broad gauge conversion project launched in 2006 and sources said it was unlikely to meet it revised deadline of 2014.
The legislators demanded completion of the much-delayed 670km east-west corridor within the fresh 2014 deadline set by the Centre.
Today’s meeting comes a day after the Centre cleared an additional Rs 600 crore to speed up completion of railway projects in the Northeast.