Panic over railway's eviction plan

 

COOCH BEHAR, July 20: The railway authority is going to reclaim its land in Alipurduar along Alipurduar-Bamanhat route. Northeast Frontier Railway's Alipurduar Division sources said they would start eviction drive shortly to complete construction of guard-walls on both side of the railway track in Alipurduar. Learning this plan a large number of people are suffering from fear of eviction.

 

It was learnt that people residing beside the railway track in Alipurduar town submitted a memorandum to the Alipurduar ADM Mr Sushanta Dutta and Divisional Railway Manager of Alipurduar division Mr Arjun Rakshit a few days ago. They appealed that they should not be evicted from their homesteads. Since guard-walls are being constructed on both sides of the railway track they should be left beyond that limit as they were there for years. They argued that they were peacefully co-operating with the railway authority by moving back to construct the guard-walls beside Alipurduar-Bamanhat railway route. Since the land beside the track beyond the guard-walls is to lie unused it should be left for the people as they used it for years.

 

Railway sources at Alipurduar clarified that they were not acquiring any new land for construction of the guard-walls. It will come up on its own land along both sides of the track.

 

The 76 kilometre long Alipurduar Junction-Bamanhat railway route was launched in 1900. Earlier it was a metre-gauge line but now conversion work is on to make it a broad-gauge one. Though the scheduled date of launching of the broad-gauge line was 31 March it was differed due to some problems. Work is on to launch it in August. NF Railway sources said that along the newly built track there will be 16 level crossings and no one of those will be left as unmanned.

 

Alipurduar MLA Mr Nirmal Das said the rail track gone through seven wards of Alipurduar Municipality. More than 700 families are residing there beside the railway track for years. The railway authority served notices to the locals asking them to vacate the encroached land. This may render about 3,500 persons homeless. It is not ethical to ask them to leave the land without offering any rehabilitation facility. "We will take up the matter with the higher authority", Mr Das assured. []