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Communication Gap

Experimenting with rail and air connectivity in the North East.

Northeast continues to be a ‘laboratory for experiment’ with every successive government in New Delhi when it comes to the question of rail and air connectivity in the region. Memories of the assurances of railway ministers in succession, Ram Vilas Paswan, Lalu Prasad Yadav and Mamata Banerjee to lay priority on connecting all the state capitals of the seven sisters by rail are readily recalled. What has so far been achieved is confined to traffic cum engineering surveys by RITES.Progress on Silchar – Jiribam – Tupul (30 km short of Imphal) is going on at a snail’s pace. Except for Guwahati and Agartala, the state capitals of the North East region are yet to have a rail head and a big mismatch between planning and implementation is evident. After 64 years of Independence, Mizoram has only 3 km of rail route and Manipur only 1.5 km.

To connect 58 districts, aviation circles feel that there ought to be equal number of airports or airfields. At present, only 24 exist.

Work is yet to start on the Dimapur – Kohima, Bhairobi – Aizwal, Murkongselek – Itanagar, Guwahati - Shillong routes. Quite paradoxically, a diesel locomotive has been proposed for Imphal in the last railway budget which seems far fetched in the absence of any infrastructure development. The Rail Bhawan often comes out with utopian schemes, perhaps to keep the people of the North East in good humour. One still recollects the rail budget of Jaffer Shareiff who had the plan of extending BG from Jogighopa to Silchar all the way through Meghalaya without any preliminary survey report.

Sontosh Mohan Dev, the then influential Union Minister, had a tough time in convincing the media and people about the feasibility and viability of such a project. Silchar – Lumding BG conversion declared a national project by Dr. Manmohan Singh Prime Minister in 2004 whose foundation was laid by Ram Vilas Paswan in 1996 is yet another project which is gathering dust.

Interestingly, in February this year, the Cabinet Committee on infrastructure sanctioned the creation of a non-lapsable North East Region Rail Development Fund (NERRDF) to ensure adequate and timely funding of national projects with an outlay of Rs. 17,005 crore. A high level project monitoring group at the Additional Secretary level in the Ministry of Railways, besides the DoNER Ministry would review the progress of the projects, a Rail Bhawan communiqué said. The 11 national  projects which included Silchar – Lumding – Jiribam, Badarpur – Kumarghat, Bogibeel Bridge, Rangia-Murkongselek, Dimapur – Zubra, Azara – Byrnihat, Bhairobi-Sairang, Agartala-Sabroom, Sevok –Rangpo and Byrnihat - Shillong which have been called new lines are in fact the old ones which have been dragging their feet for years as the records indicate.

After NEC came into being, DoNER during the NDA regime was created to give a new direction and dimension to development in the North East. However, ground realities hardly speak of any change. Conditions of highways – 53, 54, 44, 151 and 154, not to speak of roads across the region, are so bad that the army and the paramilitary forces have to charter special Airbus flights for their movement in the region and beyond.

One still recollects Jaffer Shareiff’s rail budget  who had the plan of extending BG from Jogighopa to Silchar all the way through Meghalaya without any preliminary survey report.

After a series of helicopter crashes in the region, operated mainly by Pawan Hans, the latest being the one carrying Dorjee Khanduri, who was the Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh, the DoNER Ministry is planning for better air connectivity in the region by inducting small aircrafts and helicopters. The proposal looks ambitious since it will cover 58 districts of the 7 states. According to the DoNER Minister BK Handique, a separate body would be set up under the civil aviation ministry to run the services.Under the ‘open sky policy’, private airlines along with the state airlines, Air India, would operate the flights. This plan was submitted to the Civil Aviation Ministry recently.

Before that, Shahnawaj Hussain, who was Aviation Minister in the Vajpayee Government, too spoke of Alliance Air spreading its wings in the North East in April 2003 with the introduction of 50 seater aircrafts.

To begin with, it would connect 9 destinations and was to link more destinations in time. However, before Hussain’s plan could take flight, both the state and the private airlines pressed for phasing out ATRs and inducting Boeing and Air Bus Aircrafts.

What has now become mere history, Indian Airlines and its Vayudoot services operated services till a decade back to cover 19 near and far flung destinations like Guwahati, Shillong, Agartala, Silchar, Imphal, Dimapur, Tezpur, Dibrugarh, Jorhat,  Tura, Ziro, Daporijo, Pasighat, Along, Tezu, Kailashar, Kamalpur, Khowai and Turial. These flights were operated with Fokker Friendship and Dakota.

To connect 58 districts, aviation circles feel that there ought to be equal number of airports or airfields. At present, only 24 exist. Besides building up necessary infrastructure and facilities, the most important aspect of the safety and security of both the crew members and passengers has to be given priority.

Airport Authority of India has drawn up a `4000 crore modernisation plan and one hopes along with modernisation, equipping the airports or airfields with the latest navigational aids like instrument landing system, precision approach position indicator, night and ground lighting facilities, very high frequency trans – receivers, distance area business message network, very high frequency omni radio range is of prime importance considering the strategic locations of airports or airfields, mountainous surroundings, prolonged monsoons and unpredictable weather conditions in the North East region. Indeed, it is a challenging task! Time alone will reveal if the DoNER ministry has bitten off more than it can chew.

Jyoti Lal Chowdhury