Meghalaya: Jaintia Students' Union warns NFR against Railway Survey Move

CORRESPONDENT

SHILLONG: Amidst the Centre's renewed push to expand rail connectivity into Meghalaya, the Jaintia Students' Union (JSU) has issued a strong warning to the North East Frontier Railway (NFR), cautioning it against moving ahead with surveys for two proposed railway lines leading to Jowai. The JSU's objection comes in the wake of the Government of India's 2024-2025 budget proposal, which approved surveys for the Jowai-Khliehriat-Chandranathpur route spanning 79 km and the 180-km Chaparmukh-Jowai line. The Union asserts that such initiatives, when taken forward without protective mechanisms in place, threaten to destabilize the demographic and environmental equilibrium of the Jaintia region.

The Central Body of the Jaintia Students' Union has strongly cautioned the government against "attempting to impose the railway project by force," particularly in the absence of concrete legal safeguards to protect tribal rights and without the implementation of preventive systems such as the Inner Line Permit to curb illegal influx. The JSU maintains that it "opposes the railway project primarily because, even to this day, there are no strong and effective laws in place to regulate and control illegal influx into our state."

The Union further argued that allowing railway lines to enter the Jaintia Hills would "pose a serious threat to our beautiful hills and land," warning that unregulated expansion could trigger irreversible environmental and social consequences. Drawing attention to past experiences, the JSU reminded the government of the unresolved crisis at Them Iew Mawlong (Them Metor) and disputes arising from land surveys, where delays in relocation continue to reflect administrative shortcomings.

According to the JSU, these lingering issues "raise serious questions about the Government's capacity to handle much bigger challenges that may arise if a railway is introduced into our state without proper legal safeguards" to protect the interests of local residents of the district, the wider region, and Meghalaya as a whole.

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