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Showing posts with label Katra-Banihal rail link. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Katra-Banihal rail link. Show all posts

Tuesday, 19 July 2016

07:29

Supreme Court rejects plea against Katra-Banihal rail link

Supreme Court rejects plea against Katra-Banihal rail link 
New Delhi: Supreme Court today refused to entertain a plea alleging that the railways were ignoring serious safety concerns raised by the experts regarding the 125-km-long Katra-Banihal section of the rail link to Kashmir and sought realignment of the project.
A bench comprising Chief Justice T S Thakur and Justice A M Khanwilkar dismissed the plea filed by NGO Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) which claimed that the Railway Board had rejected the expert panel’s suggestions, including having an alternate alignment.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the NGO, said that Katra-Banihal rail link was a prestigious project and it cannot be completed in the present alignment.
“Even then, we won’t interfere,” the bench said.
Delhi High Court on April 27 had disposed the NGO’s plea after an affidavit filed by the Railway Board said that “after due consideration/examination of the Report of the ex-DMRC chief E Sreedharan Committee, the Board was fully satisfied”.
The high court had expressed concern over safety of the Katra-Banihal rail link to the Kashmir Valley and directed the Railway Board to file a affidavit vouching that the line was examined in light of various experts’ reports and the current alignment was safe.
The Centre had earlier told the high court that Ircon International Ltd and Konkan Railway Pvt Ltd which were working on the project have said the current alignment was safe, survivable and stable.
The plea said that Railway Board did not place before an expert panel, headed by Sreedharan to review the current alignment of rail link, an interim report of an agency which had also examined the feasibility of an alternate alignment.
The Board had in an affidavit told the high court that the existing alignment was “well researched, well investigated line where work is progressing successfully without mishaps or problems. The line is fully safe, survivable and stable”.
It had also said that the use of tunnel boring machines as suggested by the committee was “not tenable”
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Friday, 26 February 2016

07:33

Railway Budget 2016 : Better Rail connectivity to Tripura,Manipur,Jammu,Mizoram

Railway Budget 2016 : Better Rail connectivity to Tripura,Manipur,Jammu,Mizoram 

Better Rail connectivity to North East & Jammu and Kashmir

The Minister of Railways Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu has said that better connectivity to the North Eastern States is of utmost priority for the Indian Railways. Presenting the Railway Budget 2016-17 in Parliament today he said, Indian Railways have opened the long-awaited Broad Gauge Lumding-Silchar section in Assam, thus connecting Barak Valley with rest of the country. It also brought Agartala, the capital of Tripura on to the Broad Gauge network. He said, the States of Mizoram and Manipur are also set to come on the Broad Gauge map of the country soon with commissioning of the Kathakal-Bhairabi and Arunachal-Jiribam Gauge Conversion projects.

The Minister said, in J&K, despite difficult terrain and uncertain geology, work on Katra-Banihal section of Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link Project is progressing satisfactorily and 35 Kilometers of tunneling, out of total of 95 Kilometers has been completed successfully. He said, the decongestion work on the Jalandhar- Jammu line, an important link to the valley, is going on in full swing. Doubling of two bridges will be commissioned by March 2016, while the other two bridges will be completed by 2016-17, Shri Suresh Prabhu added.
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Friday, 21 August 2015

19:30

Katra-Banihal imbroglio: IR says ‘Even experts can make mistakes'; emphasize on dismissal of PIL

Katra-Banihal imbroglio: IR says ‘Even experts can make mistakes'; emphasize on dismissal of PIL

Railways questions E Sreedharan’s expertise over J&K line in the Court

New Delhi: Indian Railways has cast doubt on the expertise of E Sreedharan, renowned as the man behind Delhi Metro and the Konkan Railway, in a Delhi High Court battle over the safety of a line being built in Jammu and Kashmir that’s already eight years behind schedule.

The high court had appointed a panel headed by Sreedharan to examine plans for the 111-kilometre, Katra-Banihal stretch after Prashant Bhushan’s Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) filed a PIL on the matter. The railways, rushing to finish the line in five years, has already spent more than Rs 10,000 crore over the past 13 years on the section in a politically sensitive state where the Bharatiya Janata Party is part of the governing coalition.

The railways questioned the Konkan Railway’s “speckled safety record”, providing a detailed report of accidents on the line that had resulted in the death of 71 passengers since it started, emphasising that “even experts can make mistakes”. It also said that, “in stark comparison to Konkan line’s record, there has been no casualty in the Jammu-Baramullah line”, which was built in far tougher geological conditions.

Sreedharan said he would only respond in court to what the railways had to say about his report or regarding the Konkan Railway.

“Whatever I have to say, I will say it in the court,” he said. About the Katra-Banihal line, he said that the court had asked advocates from both sides to tabulate what he had said in the report and what railways were saying. The court will decide, he added.

Sreedharan, then with Indian Railways, and his team successfully built the Konkan Railway two decades ago after difficult terrain had frustrated previous efforts. Being on the coast, the line is vulnerable to heavy monsoon rain that leads to landslides. Delhi Metro is regarded as one of the most successful mass transit systems in India, having transformed public transport in the capital.

Officials said the Prime Minister’s Office is closely monitoring progress of the Katra-Banihal line and wants the railways to take a tough stand on the case. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is said to have sought regular reports from the railway ministry on the line. The railways has promised the PMO that the line will be completed by 2020.

“In fact, when the PM got to know that the main reason for delay of the project was the PIL, he asked attorney general Mukul Rohatgi to personally review the case. Additional solicitor general Maninder Singh has been arguing for the railways ever since,” an official said.

The Sreedharan committee submitted its report in February, stating “the biggest concern regarding the existing alignment is the poor survivability of the tunnels, bridges and cuttings against the threats of landslides, earthquakes, and the security risks arising out of the nearness of the line to the LoC (Line of Control)”. The railways dismissed the report’s conclusions.

“The committee had no topographic sheets to study, no geological, geotechnical, slope stability or seismic study reports to study about a paper alignment which is not even properly marked on paper,” it said. “Therefore, the conclusions of the committee are mere conjectures, fallacious, specious and delusive statements.”

It said none of the committee members had visited the site. “Therefore, the committee had to suggest that the proposed alignment in the report is only a ‘paper alignment’,” the railways said, adding that “the existing alignment is well-researched, well-investigated line where work is progressing successfully without any mishaps or problems.”

The railways also said the committee did not hold discussions with officials and international experts working on the project. “The committee did not consider the voluminous documentation provided by the project team. The committee did not allow presentations from experts, and it did not provide any technical justification and logic supported by any calculations or analysis in support of its paper alignment,” it told the court.

The Railway Board was the sole authority competent to take decisions, including track alignment.

Asking the court to dismiss the PIL, the railways said that if “such administrative decisions continue to be challenged, it would open a Pandora’s Box, making other infrastructure projects prone to challenge and scrutiny thereby affecting the progress of work and as a consequence affecting development of the country at the instance of vested interests.”
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Saturday, 25 July 2015

23:02

Sreedharan Report on Katra-Banihal Rail link only a ‘Paper Alignment’, requires further study: Railways to Delhi HC

Sreedharan Report on Katra-Banihal Rail link only a ‘Paper Alignment’, requires further study: Railways to Delhi HC

New Delhi: The Railway Board today told the Delhi High Court that recommendations of E Sreedharan panel on the Katra-Banihal rail link to the Kashmir Valley was only a “paper alignment” and requires further studies.

The Board has told a bench of justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva that the committee’s report does not provide what would be the proposed expenditure that would be incurred for implementing the panel’s recommendations.

It has said a “proper assessment for good construction status of alignment in this area shall require at least five years and would entail an expenditure of about Rs 300 crore”.

It has said that the panel report has been scrutinised by each of the senior officials of its engineering, mechanical as well as electrical and signaling departments, who have disagreed with the committee’s findings.

“Therefore, the entirely unsustainable observations made in the report by the committee that the alignment can be surveyed, staked and investigated quickly in four to six months, is completely untenable deserving rejection at the threshold itself,” the Board has said in its affidavit.

The Board’s reply was strongly opposed by advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for an NGO which has filed a PIL alleging that the current alignment of the Katra-Banihal rail link had “serious safety problems” and the Railway Board constituted by the Railway Ministryhad rejected the expert panel’s suggestions, including having an alternate alignment.

Bhushan said statements made by the Board question the competence of the committee as well as Sreedharan and asked the court to call the person who drafted the affidavit.

The bench, however, refused to pass any orders and listed the matter for further hearing on August 5.
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