Siliguri, Feb. 10: It will be the last in the series of agitations that Oodlabari has been witnessing since the past month.

On February 20, the Oodlabari Unnayan Committee, which has been lobbying for train halts since the last two years, will stall the ongoing gauge-conversion work for 72 hours if railway authorities fail to give them a written assurance that their demands will be met.

The demand — Oodlabari should have a full-fledged station with halts for all Up and Down passenger trains running on the route.

Oodlabari, an economically vibrant region under Alipurduar division of Northeast Frontier Railways (NFR), was demoted to a halt station in September 1998.

“We had started our month-long agitation programme on January 23 by stalling the gauge conversion work for 24 hours. On February 6, we extended it to 48 hours. Since no action has been taken so far, this time the strike will be for 72 hours. If this also fails to draw the attention of the NFR authorities, we will halt the conversion work for an indefinite period,” said convener of the committee Tapan Ghosh.

The committee had approached the divisional officials of NFR on February 8, urging them to upgrade the station.

“We want the Up and Down trains to stop here and also want the railways to provide a crossing facility so that trains can operate both-ways at the same time. This in turn will definitely boost the sale of the tickets and rates of goods bookings,” reasoned Ghosh.

“The divisional commercial manager of Alipurduar has requested us to withdraw our agitation on February 20, promising that NFR will deal with the matter after the conversion work gets over in September,” Ghosh added.