Train services remain disrupted in some NE states due to railway track damage

GUWAHATI/AGARTALA — Supply of essential commodities, food grains, and transport fuel have been disrupted in some northeastern states as the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) engineers and workers are repairing the damage to the railway track in Assam’s Lumding-Badarpur Hill Section, where a loaded goods train wagon derailed on October 31.   

An official of the NFR said that after partial repair of the damaged railway track, train services resumed in Lumding-Badarpur Hill Section under Southern Assam’s Dima Hasao district on November 3 but fully loaded and normal train services could not be resumed.

“We expect that the ongoing repair work would be completed by mid-next week and then normal train services would be started,” the official said.

Notably, all the Express, passenger, local and goods trains connecting Manipur, Southern Assam, Tripura and Mizoram pass through the single track of the Lumding-Badarpur Hill section under the mountainous Dima Hasao district.

The Lumding-Badarpur Hill section under the NFR is the lone railway route to connect Manipur, Southern Assam, Tripura and Mizoram with the rest of the country via Guwahati.

A wagon of the Silchar-bound goods train carrying food grains from northern India derailed inside a tunnel near Mupa in the Lumding-Badarpur Hill Section of Southern Assam’s Dima Hasao district on October 31.

According to Railway officials, more than a dozen trains were cancelled on the Lumding-Badarpur Hill Section between October 31 and November 2 while some others were either partially cancelled or rescheduled during this period.

Earlier, the normal train services were affected on October 17 and 18, when six coaches, an engine and the power car of Mumbai-bound Agartala-Lokmanya Tilak Terminus Express derailed on the same Lumding-Badarpur Hill section.

People of southern Assam, Tripura, Mizoram and Manipur bear the brunt of floods during monsoon every year while the railway tracks, stations and other infrastructure get damaged due to flooding and landslides during the four-month-long monsoon from June to September.

In view of the disruption of train services, the supply of essential commodities, food grains, diesel and petrol remains badly affected in Manipur, Southern Assam, Tripura and Mizoram.

The Tripura government on Saturday also imposed restrictions on the sale of petrol in the state.

Tripura’s Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Department Director Sumit Lodh in a notification said that in view of the supply constraint of petrol in the state, following the disruption of goods trains services in the Lumding-Badarpur section of NFR coupled with the bad condition of the National Highway-08, it has been decided to impose restriction on the sale of petrol to two-wheelers, three-wheelers and various other vehicles.