How many false promises are given by the Railway Board

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How much further Railway Board misguide the government and parliament

To appreciate how badly the Railway Board’s policy of alignment of flat gradient of 1 in 100 is faring on the other projects in Himalayas.

let’s look at the Dimapur-Kohima project in Nagaland. Construction of this line began in 2007.

After 8 long years, Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) wrote to Board that, “the alignment in the 66 km long mountainous section of the line is not feasible as it requires large bridges at too many locations which can not be constructed”.

From 2016-19, fresh survey was carried out.

Construction was started at some locations on the revised alignment and current progress is only < 5% in 8 years.

Despite this state of affairs, NFR issued statement in 2015 that construction of all 5 lines to link the all 5 state capitals will be completed by 2020.

Then in 2018, in reply to a question in the Parliament, it was said that except for the line in Sikkim, construction of lines to the other four state capitals (Shillong, Kohima, Aizawl, Imphal) will be completed within the target of 2020.

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/railways-to-connect-all-northeastern-state-capitals-by-2020-747032?amp=1&akamai-rum=off&__twitter_impression=true

Alok Kumar Verma, a retired IRSE and an expert engineer of hil areas says, “I am not aware if any action was taken to hold to account the agencies and all concerned officials responsible for the original alignment for the line to Kohima”.

Further, the question that needed to be asked was why N. F. Railway took more than 7 years to start fresh survey for a revised alignment?

https://indianexpress.com/article/india/capitals-of-assam-arunachal-tripura-connected-by-broad-gauge-rail-network-5793390/lite/?__twitter_impression=true

In a recent statement the Chairman, Railway Board has claimed that the links to Kohima, Imphal, Shillong and Sikkim will be completed by 2023.

He is quoted as saying, “We are progressing at full speed and by 2023 all these capitals in the North-Eastern states will be connected. These are very important railway projects which we have focused in the last five years”.

https://www.livemint.com/news/india/capitals-of-ne-states-to-be-connected-to-rail-network-by-2023-railway-board/amp-11595029292137.html?__twitter_impression=true

There is no explanation why Railway Board’s target of completing all these 5 projects by 2015 was not met? No mention of the change of alignment of the line to Kohima.