The Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) on Tuesday said it has taken the demand for a railway crossing by villagers of Kharboja in Goalpara district of lower Assam with “utmost seriousness and sympathy”.
Reacting to a report in The Telegraph, “Goalpara villagers seek level crossings” on December 3 highlighting how Bar Makori and Kharboja, two tribal villages under the Balijana revenue circle, in the district have been suffering from the absence of level crossing for the past 29 years.
The villagers are compelled to cross the railway track daily for their work.
“The demand of proper arrangements for crossing railway track by villagers of Kharboja has been considered by the NFR with utmost seriousness and sympathy. Since the villagers have been demanding a level crossing for many years, the additional divisional engineer of Goalpara had conducted and submitted a feasibility report on November 30,” Subhanan Chanda, chief public relations officer told The Telegraph.
“It has been found that construction of a limited height subway (LHS) (or underpass) is feasible at KM 40/7 near Pancharanta railway station as demanded by the villagers. Since, National Highway 37 is only 14 metres away from the railway track and the level difference between the surface of national highway and rail line is only four metres, there is not enough room for providing gradient/slope from the national highway to the LHS. Therefore, the LHS can be only 2.5 metre high,” the report said.
A source also said it has to an overpass or an underpass as the railway has stopped construction of level crossing because of traffic disruption and to check accidents.
He also said they have already written to the Goalpara district administration seeking a proposal from their end for construction.
“The work can be taken up if the state government agrees to bear the entire cost of the work and no objection certificate (NOC) is issued by it for the execution of the work since over 10 years have lapsed after construction of the railway line,” the report added.
