Scribes' body demands railway bridge over Brahmaputra between Saikhowa and Sadiya

From a Correspondent

DOOMDOOMA, April 12: The Tinsukia District Jourlists Association (TDJA), whose 19th biennial conference concluded recently at Digboi, has by a resolution demanded a railway bridge over the River Brahmaputra in between Saikhowa and Sadiya so as to extend the present Makum-Dangri branch line up to Saikhowa and beyond to connect Roing in nearby Aruchal Pradesh.  The fifth bridge over Brahmaputra, which is to be iugurated by the Prime Minister, rendra Modi in the month of May, is a road bridge. A survey was undertaken by North Eastern Council (NEC) at the initiative of Chief Minister Sarbanda Sonowal and Dr Arun Sharma while they were MPs of Dibrugarh and Lakhimpur parliamentary constituencies respectively. But instead of a road-cum-rail bridge like Bogibeel, it was taken up as road bridge only, thus depriving the people of Sadiya subdivision of having a rail-head even after seven decades of India attaining freedom.

In view of its proximity with Chi, it was the policy of the Government of India to give priority to rail, road and air connectivity in the States having border with Chi. Had the alignment been made through Sadiya to connect important towns of Aruchal Pradesh like Tezu and msai, the land acquisition matter would have been much easier. The present alignment to construct a railway line from Rupai to Parasuram Kund via msai and then from Pasighat to Tezu, would be time consuming and in the fil alysis, it will be Assamese people who will have to lose most of the cultivable lands.  By another resolution, the scribes’ body demanded the proper implementation of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of investing 2 per cent of their profit for local area development by the heavy industries like OIL, IOC,AOD, Coal India Limited, tea and plywood manufacturing industries of the area. It also demanded the regular running of ultra modern Diesel Electrical Multiple Unit (DEMU) train services in between Dibrugarh to Dangri and Dibrugarh to Ledo.  The scribes’ body meet concluded with holding of the delegate session which elected new office-bearers for its executive body for 2017-19 with Anuj Kalita as president, Manoranjan Das as general secretary and Dinesh Goyal as treasurer. TDJA Trust Committee for 2017-19 was also newly formed with Dhiren Deka as president and Krish Upadhaya as secretary.