Long long time ago there was a plan to extend the railway line to Byrnihat. The distance by road is around 21 km. By what flight of fancy if profit and loss is duly calculated, there is a need, it is difficult to understand. KSU did fear from influx point of view but with 82 km climb, the fear was wrongly attributed to and rather the real fear needed be the slums all over Byrnihat and as lately seen in other part of India eviction after many long years is painful to watch especially with JCBs mama or babus. Thus to prevent ill feelings and regret, the best was what KSU had done in the very beginning.
I smell a rat around three years back when just like gold rush in Alaska century ago, many Shillongites quite in frequent visit to the Secretariat rushed to Ri-Bhoi to buy plots of land at throwaway prices from unmindful owners who never know of the million dollar project. Two years back some friends from Ri-Bhoi came to Shillong for some work. They enquired from me why Ri-Bhoi was purchased by all big purse people, to which my answer was in the negative.
It was only last year’s spring that my nephew rang to tell me he had purchased the plot of land on the Umsning Raitong road and it was all in vain. It became more and more and he was grilled further as to why in vain. He replied that on social media, the Chief Minister was heard to announce that the railway line project to Shillong from Guwahati may be stalled.
I was shocked to the core as a railway to Shillong at 5990 feet above sea level is impossible by any stretch of imagination. The gradient for rails is one metre rise for every 100 metre. Vehicle permissible is one metre rise to six metre. Of course the world’s most notorious gradient Mawblei to the start of Laitkor is 2 to 5 metre. And Laitkor in English pertains to some parts of machines dislodged. In the spring of 2021 when Dwar Ksuid Bailey Bridge snapped and trucks rerouted through Laitkor inspite of the High Court order to load 20 Ton (no clarity as to gross or axle), Laitkor turned a workshop for many overloaded trucks due to some engine seizure!
One former Chief Engineer of PWD was consulted. An answer was the railway line is not impossible but it needs to zigzag the entire Ri-Bhoi district to achieve the permissible slope. For example from Byrnihat it would go west to Patharkhmah, zigzag to upper Umjong etc. Umiam dam is 3220 ft above sea level. 5990 minus 3220 comes to 2770feet!!
He was enquired again on the 2770 feet rise with Shillong so near to Umiam dam whereupon I was convinced that it would shoot to Nartiang side to back through permissible slope to Shillong. Thus it was a plan with huge financial involvement. And in such a scenario, our NH-6 would be crisscrossed with manned gates at crossings and quite a good number and NH-6 can’t guarantee the old time frame taken to travel.
Pollution – There is no denying the fact that NTPC is currently coal starved after floods hit the coal mining states. Six passenger trains had to turn on goods trains in emergency in 2021 to meet the demand of NTPC with an unusual surge of mercury that year. Of course Adani coal from Australia was promised 7.1 million ton per year is being shipped out of which lion’s share is to India. But in time of need as watched on NDTV, Adani raised the price to an unpurchasable limit as bills per Kwhr be it domestic or industrial could not be arbitrarily raised. Thus a diesel engine is a must. Diesel emits PPM10 very harmful to the lungs more so as unlike in the plain with zero gradient, the emission would be much higher.
Conrad Sangma talks about commodity reduced cost. Let us agree to Rs 2 decrease per kg of rice. But the hundred lakh crores of rupees for railways plus maintenance means we use howitzer to hit a fly. And trains versus buses or cars are a haven for drug traffickers. Umsning MLA Dr. Celestine Lyngdoh was very right when he talked about drug trafficking when he lambasted the enforcement agency who failed to catch high level 70 tons coal trucks and to expect them to catch a kg of drugs.
And no one questions the quick shift to North Cachar – Khliehriat. The answer is there are five cement plants around Lumshnong. There are going to be four coal miners with licentiated scientific mining. Let readers know the smallest area imperative is one square km the size of three full Polo Grounds. One at Khliehriat on the hillock Lumiakhih (Disputed Hillock in English) was acquired a long time ago by coal barons. The Dolois or Autonomous District Council needed to answer on the magnitude of such land transfer that had divided the wealthiest and the poorest.
During the high level coal movement, the poor once upon a time undisturbed could reach Beltola. Mouthwatering this time, they told that at times they entered behind the trucks with folded registration number plates till Beltola. Many trucks local or all India have no rear registration number plate. Even if either not readable or cunningly hidden some way or the other public simply grieve as PIL costs around Rs 40,000. And alone against the gross violations of the Motor Vehicle Act is never possible.
My request to the Jaintia Students’ Union (JSU) as well as the HYC is, please don’t get trapped by ILP. The Chief Minister may request the Centre to finally introduce ILP and East Jaintia will be devastated. Remember, politicians shake hands with you before polls and after swearing in they shake your confidence.
What I wish to bring home is that the railway line in Meghalaya is not possible by any stretch of imagination. I agree with JSU too, with rather harsher narrative that leave alone ILP, the amount meant for the railways in total should go to Education, Healthcare, Road Infrastructure, Water and to rejuvenate the devastated Narpuh Forest that had been plundered by Star Cement of 8.2 km unto the eco sensitive zone after the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MOEFCC) and the government of Meghalaya granted the license to the factory.
It is sad that the river Lukha is dead. In 2017 the retired senior scientist of Central Pollution Control Board, Delhi was invited by State Pollution Control Board (SPCB) to find the cause of the death of the aquatic lives. He ascended to Saipung village’ water source and descended downstream. At every confluence with small rivers there was no sign of blue colour till Lukha received the river Lunar that carries all the human and industrial wastes of the five cement plants. The question to the government is why the report was shelved till date.
The Lukha could be rejuvenated only if EIA or Environment Impact Assessment could affect the decrease of production in all the five cement plants. Unless this is done people of Lumshnong to be followed suit by Brishyrnot would have to resettle elsewhere to escape the air pollution and the forgotten noise pollution of loudspeakers calling truck drivers till 3 am.
And at times when all countries, developing as well as developed, though not all are trying to cut down carbon footprint that had caused global warming and climate change to the worst, Chief Minister Conrad Sangma lamented that NGT had come too soon. If Narpuh and the areas for scientific mining were in Garo Hills would you still utter that NGT ban had come too soon?
(The writer is a former Head of the Department of Electronics, St. Edmund’s College, Shillong)
